Tesserae is a well-hidden jewel of a puzzle game that is certain to offer most any user a more than fair challenge. It was published by GameTek Incorporated after development by Eurocom Entertainment Software in the early nineties. It is a great game of strategy and forethought that plays from a top down perspective, similar to a board game conversion.
Tesserae is designed for single player play. It was initially developed by Inline Design for the Macintosh and it was also ported to the Game Boy, Game Gear and Game Tek, aside from its port to the personal computer.
For fans of the board game style puzzle game, such as Mancala, Chinese Checkers, or even the ultimate strategy game, Chess, Tesserae is probably a great choice of games. In the beginning of the game, it will appear that Tesserae has an insurmountable number of rules, far too many to begin detailing in a brief review, but upon getting into the game, the user will start internalizing them like any other puzzle game. The game is played using different colored tiles that can be jumped over each other and positioned around the board to remove other tiles. A similar move could result in the creation of a very long and complex tile, known in the game as tesserae…hence
the name. However, as mentioned above, there are a lot of rules, variations and exemptions that will grossly complicate the game. It is easiest to learn while playing, and its high level of complexity makes it a poor choice for younger players or even experienced gamers with no patience.
One of the features that makes Tesserae so deceptive its simplistic look. A quick glance will show off a lot of bright colors, similar to a Rubic’s Cube or a Q-Bert style of game, with many nauseatingly vivid blocks on the screen. As if the game were not complex enough at the beginning, the levels become more difficult, detailed and larger as the user progresses. Before Tesserae culminates into a hair-pulling good time, it will do a thorough job of getting into the user’s head, similar to games like Tetris, Klax or MineSweeper where the gamer simply cannot admit defeat and has to keep trying to get past “just one more level.” This is a little known, but very challenging game that has an awesome replay level and will certainly keep the user entertained for days on end.
