Gunpowder

The discovery of gunpowder changed a lot of things in regards to warfare, but a few other things got more complicated as well. Hence, it was now possible to hurt a lot of people at once with bombs, and certain defenses that were thought to be impenetrable suddenly started to look pretty thin. However, it wasn't just the bad guys that made use of the invention.

Gunpowder is a Wild West puzzle game that focuses on explosions, as the name clearly states. In short, the main idea is to use powder kegs in order to blow up a rich man’s safe, but the gameplay feels a lot more like Domino. Hence, your task is to find a way for the explosions to progress smoothly toward the safe, while picking up as many bonuses as possible along the way.

The story is quite interesting as well, since it talks about Incendio, the main hero and your main character. His goal is to liberate the people of the city from Boss Grimshaw, who also happens to hold all of their gold. Granted, the story is presented using comic book strips, so you shouldn’t expect cutscenes or anything of the sort. Even so, it’s quite a wild ride from a narrative point of view.

As far as the levels are concerned, they obviously get more difficult as you manage to advance, but they are by no means impossible either. You just have to think a bit more about the possible solutions, although not too much, at least if you still want to finish it in time for an award. Speaking of which, you can get a high score by completing the levels as quickly as you can.

The graphics are certainly not bad, but the top-down perspective prevents you from seeing too much, unfortunately. Even so, the level design is usually quite pleasant, and the physics involved in the explosions seem to be pretty random. In fact, almost every in-game object can be destroyed with the right amount of explosives.

All things considered, Gunpowder should provide you with quite a bit of entertainment, especially if you are a puzzle fan. The mechanics are quite different from everything else out there, which is yet another plus.