Cursed House 16

After a really tough Cursed House 15 and a demanding Spellarium 13, LGT SIA has scaled it back a bit for the 16th Cursed House game. The 100 puzzle-M3 levels seem almost easy in spots after the other 2 aforementioned games. There are a few new mechanics this time, the most noticeable one being a new cannonball shot deflector which will have cannon shots going in the strangest ways around the playfield. The other new gadget is a permanent violet square which can be used over and over, unlike the red and green squares. Far less powerups this time around to give the game a true "puzzle" feel instead of a blast-your-way-out-of-everything. The developer now has so many different widgets in the toolbox to use for level design that it doesn't get boring, even after so many games and 2 other series which are similar. The one thing which could have been done better in a few levels was if they hadn't put the 2 tile types for moving a chain in the same location. I found myself getting annoyed with the cascades pulling the chain completely over in the wrong direction and constantly struggling to move it back because of this design, or running out of pieces to move a chain. There don't seem to be any levels which can be rendered impossible by doing things in the wrong order, although I did see one level where if you shift a piece the wrong way, it'll be lots harder. The hint button is pretty good and will give you a full walkthrough for all the M3 levels. The minigames have been reduced to only 25 Sokoban-style levels and 6 spot the difference scenes, so it feels like a M3 game instead of a mixed-genre one, and you're not having a minigame appear after seemingly every level like some of the earlier games this developer's made. I did come across a glitch where if you've completed the 100 M3 levels, there are 2 phantom spot the difference levels in the level replay menu which don't work and will cause the game to crash to desktop if you try to "play" them. The minigames aren't as demanding as they were in CH15 either for the most part, although there was one which took me a few hours to solve. Nice mix of reusing a few of the playing tiles from earlier Cursed House games and bringing in some new ones. I chuckle a bit every time there are skulls with eyeglasses. And the cursed house scene has a demon frog, which has got to be my favorite demon in all the cursed house scenes yet! Wish they'd change the soundtrack because it's the exact same one in every installment of the series, but that's just me.

It a lot of fun to play ..

This game is always fun. I especially like the diamond or Sokoban puzzles.