Pandora's Gearbox

[Pater Alf]

"Pandora's Gearbox" is a great little puzzlegame that uses a quite unique concept instead of the usual puzzles. Might be a bit frustrating in some levels (when you can't figure out what's going on), but it always remains challenging.

Developer's description:

"Pandora's Gearbox is puzzle game where you're trying to get a ball though a machine to a finish area. You can't see inside the machine, so you have to guess what's inside. You have several tools that help you in your task. You can move objects that are red directly. You also have a robot with built-in sonar that can explore the inside of the puzzle.

There are 10 levels included with Pandora's Gearbox. Level 1 is a tutorial level that should give you all of the information you need to play. Here are some tips to help you:

- You can rotate red items with the arrow keys, use this in cramped levels
- The robot can teleport to the starting area if stuck; just click on the start
- The robot can be deactivated with right-click; this is useful if you need to carry it
- Don't be afraid to restart the level if things go wrongly
- Think logically. If you're stuck, it's probably because you haven't explored all your options. The game doesn't require crazy reflexes or luck." (taken from the readme.file)

Developer: Alex Vostrov (aka IndieBird)

Download: http://www.indiebird.com/blog/?page_id=138
or at CWF: http://www.curlysworldoffreeware.com/games/view/930
Both Mac and Windows versions available.

Download size: 7.4 MB

Year: 2009

Status: Creative Commons License

[Chroelle]

Well this game really is great, and you should go try it out right away. It's extremely hard, its unpleasantly userhostile, and its one of the greatest puzzlers ever. Only thing that bugged me about this game, was the lack of a function to go to next level after finishing a level. You have to go to the menu and choose the next level you want to try - and they are all available from the get-go.

I would really love some kind of helpfunction, but at the same time I am afraid it would ruin the game for me. The pleasure of finally figuring out a level is way too big to miss out on.
See what I did there.

[Pater Alf]

Everything you said is true. But I think the game is much too frustrating to be perfect. There were some levels that I tried over and over again and I still don't were able to figure out how to solve them. But I still think there should be more levels even when I'm to stupid to complete them.

Game concept and design are brilliant without any question though!

[Chroelle]

We opened up Pandoras box and placed in on our servers at CWF:
http://www.curlysworldoffreeware.com/games/view/930