Droplitz Hands-On

While Atlus's booth had several games on display, the quirky-looking Droplitz caught our attention because it looks quite unlike most puzzlers we've seen before. In short, you're presented with a series of dials, and each dial has a pipe of different types on it. Some pipes are L shaped, others resemble a K, and so on. The goal is to rotate the dials to align the pipes in such a way that the droplets of water leaking from the top of the grid can make it safely to the buckets at the bottom. Like most puzzle games, it's a simple concept, but things can quickly turn hectic when you have bunch of droplets coming your way and no where to put them!

The dials are arranged somewhat randomly, and the droplets wait for no one, meaning you need to rotate the dials to form a route fast. The amount of droplets remaining are shown to the left of the playing field. If the droplets reach a dead end, they'll disappear. Thankfully, every time you create a route, a special droplet is released, and assuming it makes it to the bucket at the bottom, you'll be awarded with additional droplets, which extends your play time and your score. However, the dials you used to create the path will be replaced by a new random set, giving you a new puzzle with which to work.

The game features four modes of play: Classic, Endurance, Power Up, and Infection. In addition to Classic (described above), we gave Power Up a quick spin. The core gameplay is the same, except now, you periodically earn special powers, which can be activated at any time. One such power allowed us to slow the game's speed, giving us more time to spin the dials and (hopefully) form a path.

Droplitz is set to be released on XBLA, the PlayStation Network, PC, and the iPhone later this year.