Microsoft Puzzle Collection Entertainment Pack Overview
Microsoft Puzzle Collection Entertainment Pack for the Game Boy Color is a compilation of six distinct puzzle games created by Alexey Pajitnov. The collection features a variety of mechanics, from navigating labyrinths to manipulating falling objects and arranging colored elements.
One game tasks the player with guiding a thief through a colored-tile maze to find an exit, while collecting valuables and sometimes racing against a computer opponent. Movement is restricted by tile color, requiring special bridge items to cross between them. Another involves clearing a grid by forming complete lines with tetromino-like pieces, which are drawn from a constantly refilling stack. The pace increases over time, making the management of the piece queue challenging.
Other titles include a rotation puzzle where a pattern must be matched, and a game where colored balls fill a grid and must be sorted into matching sets within movable squares. There is also a reflex-based game where a moving ray must be bounced into specific colored obstacles while avoiding others, with patterns that shift during play. A final game involves routing differently colored rats through labyrinthine switches to create specific color combinations, clearing them from the board to advance. In several of these games, progression is tied to clearing a set number of items or lines, and failure occurs when the playfield becomes completely filled.
