This game is not for the faint of heart.

You may be playing as an armed piece of cheddar with massive eyebrows, but you'd best be on your damn toes in this intense puzzle platformer. But this ain't your average "puzzle platformer", no, forget your braids and your fezzes, because this game's got GUNS, SPIKES, MISSILES, DYNAMITE, LASERS, JETPACKS, SKELETONS and BLOCK, AFTER BLOCK, AFTER BLOCK, THREATENING TO TURN YOU INTO CREAM CHEESE.

And to top it all off, this game has a BLAST PROCESSING option, which does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Wait for the blocks to fall and line up with each other. The more of the same color touching, the bigger the combo bonus when you blast them with your ray-gun! That's essentially the core element of Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe, shooting blocks in larger and larger groups for higher and higher combos in order to collect gems and unlock new areas and outfits!

Each new area comes with its own tileset, music, trap-blocks, and total gems needed to "complete" the area. Gems are earned by collecting bits from blasting blocks and clusters of blocks. Grab enough or get a big enough combo and a gem will drop for you to collect. Completing certain other "tasks" will unlock different outfits or characters to choose from. Each outfit comes with its own set of stats and abilities, each one having its own strengths and weaknesses.

Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe hits the action, puzzle, and indie spots tremendously well. The music is great and keeps the game at a fast pace while the sound effects blend perfectly into it. Bright, colorful, and simple animations are pleasing to the eye and easy to keep up with during quick bouts of frantic, block-shooting fun. The multiplayer is great and the game is a solid buy for the price. Get it. Right now.

Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe is a perfect mixture of old school gameplay and modern twisted role reversal concepts; it controls beautifully, it's hard but not frustrating, when you pick up block pieces, diamonds and everything else it's very satisfying, and on top of it all, it's great for short bursts.
This is the kind of game I would have trashed every last coin into its coin op in late 80s/early 90s.

For those who don't know what this is about: it's a platform game set in a block-drop puzzle stage.
You have to avoid and destroy falling stuff. If you destroy a block placed near other blocks of the same colors you obtain more stuff. Picking up stuff is needed to level up and become more powerful.
The more you proceed, the more dangerous stuff drops down.
That's it, basically. But in a perfect arcade fashion it could virtually offer endless joy.

This is the kind of game you just can't stop playing. Like, never.

This game is exactly what's on the tin. It is a platformer and a puzzle game together. It has a semi-retro feel which will look familiar to fans of Cave Story, as a weapon-leveling mechanic is also present here. You break tiles in groups for big points, collect the experience, and avoid hitting the spikes and obstacles. This would be an excellent game, if not for one key component missing from all puzzle games of this type: The ability to drop pieces faster. In essence, if you spend 15 minutes on one attempt, to get a high score you will have to survive at least as long. It really is a silly element to miss, as it has been around since Tetris, and has been included in absolutely every other falling block style game made afterwards. If it weren't for that, this would have been a much better game.

That was a blast! I loved it!

You're a little block-shaped guy trapped in a Tetris pit and given the Polar Star from Cave Story. Your mission is to achieve a high score and survive for as long as possible against colored blocks and hazards constantly falling on you. You can clear blocks by shooting at them, and any adjacent same-colored blocks will also be damaged by your shots. Destroyed blocks drop little triangles (also from Cave Story) which will level up your gun. Getting crushed by a block will level down your gun, but most hazards (including the spikes at the bottom) will outright kill you and end your run, so you’ll have to be careful.

The main gameplay takes place in eight endless levels, each of which has its own set of hazards. Through continued play, you can unlock the different levels, as well as different characters, and about thirty “survival” challenges each of which will require you to dodge a preset pattern of hazards falling on you. I found everything in this game highly addicting and satisfying to defeat. The instant death traps were indeed frustrating, but they made the eventual success that much sweeter.

My favorite part of the game had to be the soundtrack. Unlike most retro-inspired chiptunes which sound like the NES, this game’s music is beautifully molded after the Sega Genesis (or perhaps old AdLib midis, if you prefer). There wasn’t a bad track in the whole game, and they all got me pumped to try again just one more time.

The game’s about 10-20 hours long depending on your skill level and your desired goal of completion. Getting the very last few achievements requires beating some sadistic levels which require you to survive for thirty seconds against a terrible onslaught of hazards. They are difficult, but manageable with some persistence. My only real gripe with this game was that the fourth level (Cookin Cave) seemed to be the hardest and most frustrating with some instant-death hazards which seem to come out of nowhere, but it’s doable once you notice the patterns in the level. Overall, the game’s length was about perfect and it didn’t overstay its welcome.

I recommend it to all achievement hunters, and anyone who likes the looks of the trailer. I think I’ll be having fond memories of this game for quite a while, at least until I can get the awesome music out of my head.

This is a slightly different take on the 'match colored gems' genre. Blocks will fall out of the sky, randomly, and it's your job, as a playable character, to destroy these blocks with your gun. If you shoot a block, all the other blocks connected it will also be destroyed. As long as they're the same color. Destroyed blocks will give you stars and earning enough of these stars will level up your character allowing him to shoot much faster and also to get hit should a block fall on him. Your level equals the number of times you can get hit, except if you fall onto the spikes or a weaponized block hits you. So, a level 3 character allows you to get hit 3 times. It's a challenging game, but you'll learn how to play it in a matter of minutes. 'Easy to learn, hard to master' has been never more appropriate.

Collecitng enough stars will unlock new outfits that give you more abilites, like a double jump or a jetpack, making the game slightly easier.

The retro graphics are charming and the music is pretty good, but gets a bit repetitive after a few games.

There are also challenges to be unlocked, but instead of relying on skills, they actually rely on memory. They can be frustrating, but fun, since they only last 30 seconds.

Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe is a great game for all those who love games like Bejeweled, even if it doesn't use the exact same gameplay mechanic.

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Adult Swim games is doing great work here, finding hidden gems and publishing them. This game is addicting and fun, on the level of Robot Unicorn Attack. Although I didn't really care for any of the unlockable characters, but it's good to have some variety to find one's style of play. Is this the triple A title GOTY you've been looking for, with a level system, perks, killer story, killer graphics, and hardcore gameplay? No, it is not, but it is a fun little title that should not be ignored. Buy it, play it, and play it, and play it, and play it, and play it...

Buy? Maybe. It's a very challenging block puzzler that plays a bit like Mr. Driller or Egg Mania (YEAH! Just made you google that obscure game) where you control a character instead of the actual block drops. Shoot blocks for XP shards (which look almost exactly like the ones from Cave Story), which make your weapon stronger. Connected blocks of the same color reward more XP and points. Be carefull, as shooting a block combo from under you can mean death if you don't jump in time. Other hazards can make things difficult. It has the sharpness and solidity I've started to see in other Adult Swim games, but the difficulty is no joke - get ready to kick ass or get yours kicked. If you were looking foward to this game already or if this kinda of game appeals to you, I don't see any reason for you not to enjoy it other than the somewhat unforgiving difficulty. If you have a passing interest and already have other games you're interested in, then you're not missing much, though it may be pretty fun with local co-op.

Puzzle-platformers are an underrated genre. I'm especially fond of arcade titles like Bubble Bobble(and its sequels) & Snow Brothers. What makes the concept work is that you're playing a puzzle game, but you don't actually realize it. You're just thinking "Wow if I capture these guys in bubbles and pop them at the same time, I get a huge point bonus". Figuring out how to get all the baddies at once is the puzzle, but your skills are simultaneously tested by everything out to kill you. Somebody thought "Wow I should combine a puzzle-platformer and a falling-block puzzler. That'd be super!" So now we have Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe. Alright then.

The story of SPPD is that it's a SPPD. You're a thing with a weapon, trapped in a hole, and blocks continously fall from the sky. You can destroy all the blocks as they fall, but that's not even slightly fulfilling. Instead you chip away, so that a huge mass of same-colored blocks are grouped together. Destroy that and you get a mess of gems, and possibly an invincibility star.

Why would you need invincibility? It's probably for all the traps trying to kill you. These traps can be destroyed by shooting the blocks next to them. That's not always a possibility though. You also have to account for the spiked-floor, or the pool of lava, or the dangerous pit of dying death. You don't want to mistakenly blast your floor out from under you. The goal of each world is to get as high a score as possible before you die...or get bored.

One of the standards of the falling-block puzzler is that as the game progresses, the blocks drop at increasing levels of speed. Eventually it gets to the point you have less than a second, to figure out where you want the piece to go, and if your reflexes will get it there in time. Our human limitations are what cause the game to end. SPPD doesn't do this...as far as I could tell. The pace of the game stays at the same rate throughout; the blocks never seem to fall any faster, nor do the traps get any more numerous. Eventually boredom sets in, because there's no longer any struggle for survival.

When games end unexpectedly (death) your first thought is "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥" your second thought is "Wow I bet if that didn't happen or I dodged that, I'd have gotten further." After enough time is spent in a game of SPPD you just kinda want it to end so you can move on. That's how I felt, when I "accidentally" got myself killed. If you're spending more than 15 minutes on a single game of a falling-block puzzler, it has to be an intense as hell and you're still kicking ass. After 30 minutes you're either a Tetris God or going to enslave humanity if the game ever ends. SPPD never really pushes things, which is a shame because the concept, controls, and music are quite good.

So why do I recommend SPPD?

The main mode is just one part of the game. The challenge mode throws traps at the player, and they have to use what little abilities they have to avoid them. These stages are 30-45 seconds each but they're still a decent challenge. The more advanced stages can be unlocked after amassing 50,000* points in the main mode levels. They can be quite difficult to pull off. Figuring them out is a puzzle, but all you're thinking about is how to survive.

This, along with the main mode, strike me as a couple of missed opportunities. There's the aforementioned main-game-never-speeds-up issue and now we have the challenge-mode-isn't-fleshed-out-enough issue. There are nine unlockable characters, they have different abilities. With enough effort all of these guys could have their own sets of stages. What's there is already really good, but more stages that centered around the various characters could really add to the game.

There's also multiplayer. I figure it's the kind where as you destroy lots of blocks, life is made harder for the opposing player. It's probably pretty awesome. I should go up to one of my friends and say "Wow, I've been playing this game called Super Puzzle Platformer Del-" and then they cut me off with this weird look. So yeah...I didn't try it. Maybe your friends are more open-minded.

Despite two missed opportunities and a complete non-factor** I'm still giving this game a pass. It's fun to play in short bursts, and it has all the ideas down and the mechanics to back it up. An enhanced (or more enhanced) version could turn out to be really sweet. Plus there's the great soundtrack. Good music is never not a plus when it comes to videogames.

There was an Adult Swim humble bundle awhile back, so this is probably another one of those games that you've had for awhile and never realized it. Give it a look.

*Don't quote me on that.

**My fault for not having puzzle-platformer-friendly friends.

Just got this and already played it for 2 hrs. So addicting and I can't wait to play multiplayer