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 across the screen, 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 of the same quality. It is a unique game and one that remains fun regardless of the year or modern advancements.
