Game Review 1 (written by Mindspinner) Added on: 11/02/2006
I played Jezzball around ten years ago through a trial pack of several different games. For the life of me, I can’t seem to remember the name of the package. The goal of Jezzball is to cut down the space inside your playing area to a certain percentage (I seem to remember around fifty to sixty percent) by clicking your mouse and sending a line opposite one another, thereby separating the balls and / or deleting any empty space. If your line is touched by one of the bouncing balls, you die. I can’t remember if you have a certain number of lives, or if you just have to start at the beginning. You can choose between a horizontal “line” to separate the balls, or a vertical line, and thereby cutting down the space each ball uses. I found it the easiest to separate the balls into their own spaces, and then cut down the boxes surrounding each of the separate balls.
In the first level, you start with two balls, and work on cutting down the space around the balls to as little as possible. I found it difficult to cut down the space to the maximum amount I could since for that level, it doesn’t take much to pass the level at the minimum percentage needed to pass. Once you pass that level, another ball is added, and you are now working on cutting down the space around three balls.
The first levels are really easy, but by challenging yourself to cut out as much “extra” space as possible, you can make even the first levels enjoyable! As more and more balls are added to your game, it becomes even more difficult to separate them, and therefore, more challenging. The biggest problem with this is that the minimum amount of space to cut off is achieved by carefully paring off the sides of the boxes that hold individual balls.
There is a major downside to this game however. The crummy part is that when you die, you have to start back at the beginning of the game with the original two balls, and have no way to start back where you were actually challenged. I found this to be one of those highly addictive games that I played for hours and hours. In my few months since looking for some of the games I played as a kid, despite a few copies, I have never found any of the other games quite like it, or to the same quality.
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Game Review 2 (written by Philcogrump) Added on: 09/28/2006
Jezzball is a fun old DOS game where you try to clear about 70% of the playfield. The first level starts with two balls that bounce around in a rectangular field. Your mission is to use the mouse pointer, place it somewhere in the playfield, then click it and two bars will be created. The bars will simultaneously move up and down from the pointer. If the balls do not hit the bars before they reach the top and bottom of the playfield then the bars will become solid, and the balls will bounce off the bar. If any of the balls hit the bar(s) then it will be erased and you lose a "life." If the field left or right of the bar is clear, it will be solidified and the playfield will be reduced. It becomes more difficult and challenging when the balls bounce around in smaller and smaller areas. The right mouse button can be clicked to change the orientation of the bars to horizontal, and clicking again will set it back to vertical.
When the playfield is reduced to about 30% then you will advance to the next level, which adds one ball to the playfield and you get one extra "life." The game has something like 49 levels, but most people are not able to get past the fifth level because it becomes really challenging. This game is a good way to practice being creative with timing, usage of the bars, and the positioning of the mouse pointer. Some tricks you can use to reduce the number of balls bouncing around the field are to allow one of the balls hit one half of the bar as it moves. The other half of the bar can be formed, which creates a small nook. Then sooner or later, one or more balls will head into the nook, and by changing the bar orientation, you can "trap" the ball in the nook. Then you can continue playing the game with one less ball (or more) in the playfield.
It was a fun DOS game that I remember playing often back in the early 90s. It often came with Windows 3.0 or so. The game is extremely simple in terms of appearance, with only four or five colors, the balls are red and white, the playfield is made of gray tiles, the bars are red and blue when moving and becomes black when solidified.
Although Jezzball is a simple game, it is a great and addictive game!
Comments
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Txgal888 (01/01/2007)
This is a fun filled game that you will want to play over and over again! |
