Similar to Tetris, this game is all about clearing blocks, or squarez. You'll manouevre and place Tetris pieces on the playing field. When the squarez are grouped together in 3x3 or larger rectangles, they are cleared from the screen, and you score points. However, you'll have to place the blocks before the time limit runs out. This time limit remains the same throughout the game (i.e. the level of difficulty stays the same), but the playing field will become increasing cluttered with stray squares, making it harder to find a spot to place your pieces. Once you clog up your starting position, the game is over.

To make things interesting, there are a large variety of special squarez that appear in the place of normal squarez from time to time, such as exploding blocks and acid spills. This truly sets Squarez Deluxe apart from so many other tetris-style games that offer repetitive, generic gameplay. It can be very satisfying to trigger off a chain reaction of specials and watch the fireworks. However, if the chaos is too much for you to handle, squarez can also be played in the straightforward Classic mode, where special squarez are disabled, and it's simply a matter of clearing squarez without making too much of a mess. Even then, the momentum is kept going by the score multiplier, which increases every time a large chunk of squarez is cleared at once, giving you an incentive to clear everything as quickly as possible.

In the 2-player mode, you can go head-to-head with a friend, where both playing fields are separated by a bar in the middle. This bar can be moved left or right via triggering certain special squarez, so the idea is to grab more playing space for yourself, while reducing that of your opponent's. You truly get the sense that you're battling for space, rather than for mere points.

All in all, Squarez is a very addictive and ingenious game that will keep you playing for a long time to come. Highly recommended.

This game is so good, it would be criminal not to host the file here, at The Pointe. (120 KB)