I am writing this review to help put the “+” in Just Adventure
+. These Puzz3D games are not adventure games, but puzzle-loving adventure
gamers will probably like them.

Basically, this is a virtual version of
those 3D jigsaw puzzles that we have all seen but probably few of us have tried.
My problem with doing any kind of jigsaw puzzle is that they take such a long
time to complete, and meanwhile all of the pieces are laying around on the table–this
just does not cut the mustard (aren’t you glad I didn’t say “cut the cheese”?)
in my house with two young boys running around flailing like mad. This computerized
jigsaw puzzle is a perfect solution–the unfinished puzzle is nothing but a file
on my computer.

The puzzle pieces are very easy to manipulate, and every
time you finish a segment, you can put it in a special gold tray and then either
switch views to the construction site and place the completed segment or just
stay on the table view and build some more. You can create as many “trays”
as you want to carry groups of pieces to another part of the table, sort pieces,
etc. You get three different zoom levels and several different table views to
aid in completing your building. The whole puzzle-building part was somehow tedious
and yet addicting–I found myself glued to my screen for what seemed like a few
minutes and surfacing from my reverie only to realize that several hours had passed.

There
are three versions of these Puzz3D games: the Bavarian Castle is the home
of mad King Ludwig, he of Gabriel Knight 2 fame (spoken like a true adventure
gamer, right?) and sponsor of the classical opera composer Richard Wagner. There
is also a Victorian Mansion (generic, I guess) and Notre Dame Cathedral (I bet
the back story has to do with the ol’ hunchback).

By completing the jigsaw
puzzle, you earn a key to enter one or more rooms of the finished castle, depending
on the skill level. You choose one of four skill levels at the beginning of the
game, the differences being the number of total pieces and whether your construction
site will have a wireframe guide on which to place finished segments. You must
complete the hardest level to get the key that will allow you to explore all of
the castle, so of course that’s what I did–I would have hated not knowing what
I missed had I chosen a lesser path.

I was treated to little video vignettes
of the increasingly strained relationship between Wagner and Ludwig as I progressed.
These scenes apparently are triggered by how many pieces are left on the table.
Also, there are little summaries of the Wagner opera plots (or subplots in the
case of the Ring). And on top of that, sometimes you get building tips instead
of Wagner/Ludwig stuff, but by the time these tips pop up, you’ve likely already
figured it out yourself, so this is not a useful feature. I wound up just ignoring
the “book” that contained all of these things and then reviewing it
at the end of the puzzle construction phase of the game. Otherwise, it was too
distracting.

After the puzzle is completed and you have earned your key,
you may use it to enter the castle and explore. There are four standalone puzzles
inside for you to find and do as you look around, one of which involves finding
and putting together, in another little puzzle, pieces of a sword to slay the
Dragon that guards the Ring in a rousing video finale. (No spoilers here; you
can read same in the manual.) Another of the puzzles involved putting pieces of
music together to duplicate eight snatches from Wagner’s Ring opera, another involved
restoring the colors to a painting of Tristan und Isolde, and the last involved
rotating pieces of King Ludwig’s unfinished throne to complete it. All of these
puzzles were fun, and I was especially proud of myself for completing that music
puzzle–I usually stink at those.

In addition to the puzzles and the sword
pieces, you find rings that, when clicked, yield up yet more video clips. In these
Tristan and Isolde are trying to obtain the Ring so that they no longer have to
die at the end of each performance of the opera. One unnerving thing was that
the same actor who portrayed King Ludwig in the puzzle-putting-together portion
of the game played Tristan in the exploration phase–it took me a while to catch
on to who he was supposed to be.

The inside-the-castle segments are beautifully
illustrated, and you have the ability to pan 360 degrees on the horizontal plane
and look nearly all the way up or down on the vertical.

The acting is totally
cheesy, but the costumes are nice. The music is also nice, all Wagner to my unschooled
ear, but there is not much of it, usually just a bit here and there as you are
moving and then nothing while you’re standing still.

Everything I know about
Wagner and Ludwig I learned from video games. Between this and Ring and
GK2, I feel ever so edumucated on the subject. (I was waiting for King
Ludwig to turn into a werewolf in this game, but it never happened.)

My
final grade for Puzz3D Bavarian Castle is an A, and I liked it enough
to seek out the other two versions so I can play them too.

System
Requirements:

Windows 95/98:

Pentium 100 MHz (200 MHz recommended)
16 MB of Ram (24 MB recommended)

Microsoft-compatible mouse
45 MB free hard disk space
640×480, 16-bit
colors, DirectX certified video driver (1 MB of cache video memory recommended)

2X CD-ROM drive (minimum)
Direct Sound compatible sound card
Note: Windows
95 virtual memory should be on

Mac OS:

MacOS 7.5 or higher
PowerPC 80 MHz (200 MHz recommended)
20 MB of RAM
(32 MB recommended)
32 MB free hard disk space
640×480, 16-bit colors
video and display
2X CD-ROM drive (minimum)