SuperAnthony's Joltzsi

it's like Tricky Tetris. You're gonna get addicted

Joltzsi takes Tetris to the next level...literally! You're tasked with placing tetrominoes on a topdown board to add 1 to the values of the tiles under that tetromino, and making a vertical or horizontal line of tiles with alike values will clear them. You can also stack past 1 to make more valuable tiles, and clearing multiple lines at once will score more points too! Just have to be careful not to stack any tile higher than 4 or it's game over. It all sounds simple, but it's also pretty involved once you start getting the hang of things which I find cool! Trying to stack for higher values means being careful with piece placements to avoid accidentally clearing lines early, and high values means you're committing to making those high value clears with those at some point to avoid topping out. This is especially true when you aim for Joltzsi's, this game's equivalent to Tetrises. You either nail it, have some sort of backup plan, or you unceremoniously top out. Good ol risk vs reward! Combine this with an NES Tetris-style progression where you choose a starting level (with higher levels = faster time before pieces drop to the board on their own), leveling up when making enough lines, and scoring more points on higher levels and you've got a pretty cool score attack puzzler! Interesting base gameplay mechanics aside, I like the aesthetic of Joltzsi too! It has a minimalist art style that's both modern and retro at the same time, and these vibes are heard in the game's music too. Referring back to NES Tetris, the game also feels like you're at an NES Tetris World Championship event with the announcer's callouts during gameplay! It's fun to hear his voicelines, especially the ones you get for making Joltzsi's! As of writing this review (June 27, 2024), I've mostly been playing the singleplayer Game A mode (both in this Early Access release and during a Next Fest demo period), but the game also has a Game B mode which introduces unconventional pieces and a VS mode where both players share the same board (with one player adding 1 and one player subtracting 1 from tile values with their tetrominoes) and try to score higher than the other player! I'll try and update this review when I get around to playing the other modes, as well as when future things get added! At the time of this review though, Joltzsi's pretty worth it for its $5 USD asking price! I feel like I've only scratched the surface of the game's strategy, and you'll likely have an interesting time with learning Joltzsi too! Dancing around the ever-changing board state as you place pieces and clear lines, finding piece patterns to stack cleanly, and clutching it out on the higher levels and their fast gravity, it's a great time!