#falling blocks

Milon no Hoshizora Shabon: Puzzle Kumikyoku

Hudson’s star faded away after the 1990s, surviving on a steady but reliable diet of Bomberman and Momotarou Densetsu games, along with an occasional retro revival. One of these was a puzzle game starring Milon, initially released on mobile phones as Milon no Hoshizora Shabon (“Milon’s Starry Sky Bubbles”), which was later ported to the Nintendo DS and given the subtitle Puzzle Kumikyoku (“Puzzle Suite”).

The actor, 31, was said to have been in close contact with a crew member who caught the virus while shooting Falling Blocks in Glasgow.

A publicist for the film said they hope to have him back on set this week after he tested negative.

Bomberman: Panic Bomber

For the first Bomberman spin-off since RoboWarrior, Hudson Soft decided to take a crack at the ever-reliable “falling block” puzzle game genre, specifically ones in the vein of Puyo Puyo. It might sound like an unusual idea, taking a franchise that’s partially about destroying blocks and instead asking players to stack them for a bit before letting loose with their explosives, but Panic Bomber manages to establish a distinct identity for itself that makes it worth visiting even today. While some future Bomberman spin-offs failed to get more than a few iterations at most, Panic Bomber managed to get unique entries through the early 2000s and still endures to a small degree thanks to relatively recent ports on things like the Wii U Virtual Console in 2017 and the PC Engine Mini in 2020.

Baku Baku

Sega has always had a strong foothold in the puzzle genre, thanks to long running franchises like Puyo Puyo and Columns. In between those releases, Sega made some attempts to inject the genre with new life and their lovable, oddball charm with games like ChuChu Rocket! and the Puzzle & Action series. Baku Baku Animal (just Baku Baku outside of Japan, which roughly translates to “chomp chomp”) was one such attempt, and much like ChuChu Rocket!, it never got the chance to become a franchise. Developed for Japanese arcades in 1995 by Sega AM3’s R&D Division, who would later become known as Hitmaker, it would be the team’s one and only shot at the puzzle genre. Taking notes from Puyo Puyo, it’s a falling block puzzle game with an emphasis on chaining together combos, but it stands out thanks to its spin on the moment-to-moment gameplay and visuals that are endearing and unsettling in equal measure.

Cleopatra Fortune

One genre that Taito is somewhat well-remembered for beyond their platformers and shooter games is definitely puzzle games. Whether it be experimental takes on the genre like Puchi Carat or more standard, yet highly popular titles like the Puzzle Bobble series, Taito has produced a wide palette of puzzle games, and especially so in the 90’s, where a lot of these appeared on their bespoke Taito F3 “Cybercore” arcade system. However, a lot of them didn’t go as noticed as the Puzzle Bobble games, being relegated to a quiet appearance on a lot of the Taito arcade compilations years later, where they only then finally got noticed by people outside Japan. Cleopatra Fortune is definitely one such example, even if it wasn’t hit with obscurity as hard as some of Taito’s other puzzle games. 

Worms Blast

It wouldn’t be hard to assume that Team 17 was running low on new ideas for the franchise after World Party. That game had little to offer for those who didn’t own it on Dreamcast, which itself was already near dead by its release. Even Armageddon, its prequel, was more of an improvement upon Worms 2 than anything radically different. One could hardly blame the creators for wanting to try something new, to do something with the worms that hadn’t been done before. More than likely, however, ‘Puzzle Bobble-esque puzzle game’ wouldn’t have been anyone’s guess on what would follow.