Box Boy is a simple platform puzzle game, with a simple visual style, and simple sound design. Yet despite its appearances, at times it’s anything but simple to complete.
You play as a square. You can make a certain number of other squares come out of you, chained in any direction (although the first one can’t go straight down), and you can use these to hook onto other platforms, push yourself across gaps, or press remote buttons. You can detach yourself from the blocks you create, though if you then try to create more the prior ones disappear. If any block is resting on a surface, you can transport to that other block along the chain you have built.
It is all relatively simple for the first few levels, and indeed I was getting to the point where I couldn’t really imagine any more puzzles with this basic setup. Each level is relatively short and defined how many boxes you can grow, and there are one or two crowns to collect as you progress through the level which disappear if you create too many boxes before getting to them. I was able to collect all crowns, if not on the first time through the level, then on the second.
But then the game starts introducing new concepts – one in each new world – and you have to learn the game all over. Switches to open doors, spikes, enemies (who helpfully activate things and disappear if you guide them to the right place), conveyor belts, and rows of blocks which disappear if you fill the gaps. Variety was very much appreciated.
I only have a few more levels to go, though I can see there are some added challenges to complete, plus lots of outfits to unlock somehow. I have a feeling the sequels may be more of a pull.
so I had some variety, but my first attempt at Brock’s underling saw all my team of six (which also included Pidgey, Metapod and another Caterpie) being defeated. Before trying again, I went to the South of the city and wandered around in a patch of grass for around 150 hours, battling hundreds of level 3 and 4 pidgeys, caterpies, and rattatas. The time was not spent in vain, however, as Metapod evolved into Butterfree, with the confusion move, and Spearow and Charmander all jumped up several levels. Of course, this being a Generation 1 pokémon game, there was no EXP Share, so all this levelling had to be done by having Metapod in the first slot of my team and manually changing away from it as the first move.
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