Roogoo First Look

Earlier this month, during a meeting with SouthPeak Games, we had an opportunity to check out a brief demo of the then-unannounced Xbox Live Arcade version of Roogoo. Also in development for the PC, Roogoo is a puzzle game where you'll be tasked with saving the planet Roo from its corrupt king. The storyline doesn't really seem necessary given that this is a pretty straightforward puzzle game, but it's bonkers enough that we can't resist sharing what we know of it with you. The planet Roo owes its beauty to a strange phenomenon--geometrically shaped, brightly colored asteroids that fall from the sky. The evil king wants the power of the asteroids to himself, and as a result of his evil scheme, the planet is being drained of its beauty.

Roogoo isn't nearly as easy as it looks.

How will you foil the king's nefarious plan? By rotating a series of orbiting circular platforms with holes cut into them so that the aforementioned asteroids can fall safely onto the planet surface, of course. That sounds awfully complicated, but all you really need to know is that the asteroids--like pieces from a children's shapes puzzle--take the form of circles, triangles, squares, stars, hearts, and such. The holes in the circular platforms have the same shapes cut into them. Thus, while you view the action through a dynamically moving camera, you simply rotate the platforms so that the asteroids hit the right holes and--once a few of the asteroids are stacked atop each other--are forced through the platforms.

Roogoo's early levels use only three different shapes of asteroid, and they fall from the sky at a relatively sedate pace. We had an opportunity to check out some levels later in the game during our meeting and can also report that things look to get a lot more challenging. As you progress, you'll be presented with additional asteroid shapes, along with multiple platforms to guide them through, and the action will speed up considerably. We even saw one level where the asteroids had to be guided from the top of the level down through the platforms to the bottom, and then back again. Furthermore, there are levels where the holes are covered with trapdoors that open and close on a timer, so you have to speed up the descent of the asteroids by holding down a button so that they hit the platform at the right moment. You'll also need to speed up the asteroids when aliens try to interfere with the platforms, so that you can knock the little green guys off.

In addition to the single-player mode, Roogoo will feature competitive multiplayer modes that can be played either split-screen or online. The Xbox 360 and PC versions of Roogoo are scheduled for release in April and early May, respectively. We'll bring you more information on the game as soon as it becomes available.