Jungle Bloxx review

We review Jungle Bloxx, a physics puzzler with a jungle theme. And lots of monkeys

Published on Sep 4, 2009

If there’s one universal truth about game design, it’s that in general games are made better by the inclusion of monkeys. Having cottoned onto this fact, Digital Chocolate’s Jungle Bloxx is full of them, even though, if we’re honest, they’ve got nothing to do with the gameplay.

Rather than being about monkeys, Jungle Bloxx is really about physics and blocks, much as we like the idea of it being about jungles and monkeys. There are 90 levels included in total, and in each one you’re faced with a construction made of the jungle blocks of the title.

On top of this construction lies a jewel that you have to lead down to a platform underneath the blocks. Although it can drop from any height onto this platform, if it falls from a centimetre height onto the grass, it’ll break.

To help the jewel on its way, you have to blast away the blocks, one by one. Each object in the game complies with an approximation of real world physics though, and the levels are full of seesaw-like constructions just waiting to lob the jewel to its doom when you make the wrong move.

Jungle Bloxx is very good as keeping things fluid through the huge number of levels it includes, introducing new blocks every handful of levels, such as ones that split into smaller blocks and others than expand on a first tap before being destroyed on the second. Enriching as these are, Jungle Bloxx’s core gameplay isn’t entirely without issues.

Firstly, the physics don’t seem entirely reliable – or at least they’re not relayed visually with enough fidelity to give you complete confidence in them. So, in some levels you’re left feeling like you’re trying to cheat the physics rather than out-thinking it.

Then, much as it saddens us to say, Jungle Bloxx’s presentation feels out-of-sync with the game’s rate of play. As levels can be over in a flash, especially if you blast the wrong block, the load time between restarts, small as it is, does become a little irritating.

Also, although we started out loving the fanfare you receive whenever you get a gold award in a level, and accompanying monkey animation naturally, the fact that it carries on for almost twenty seconds does seem a little excessive after you’ve watched it for the dozenth time in twenty minutes.

Jungle Bloxx is a good physics puzzler, but performs slightly under rivals such as Tropical Towers and Perfect Balance. Still, if you’re a physics fiend, it’s a good buy.