Gear Works is a game I first played a long time ago and have recently replayed. It is a fun little puzzle game. The basic idea in each level is that you must use three types of gear, small, medium and large to connect the first gear with the last gear on the far side of the level. On the left hand side of the screen is a pump that is your source of power and you have to select different size gears and link the opposite turning gear with the first so that your new gear will start turning too. Eventually you will reach the loan gear at the right hand side of the screen and have all your gears working. There is a pressure gauge that fills as you play giving a time constraint to the levels, don’t finish before the pressure builds up and you lose a life. There are Poffins that wonder around the board which are pesky gremlin-like creatures that will rust your gears, so you need to pay attention to them. Once they rust your gears, you need to oil the gears in order to keep them turning. I don’t so much worry about scoring highly as much as being able to have all my gears working by the end of the level and completing the monuments.
Under the grid where you place the gears is the score panel and engine temperature. Also showing information about what you can use bomb count, gun sight, oil count to help in the game. Each of the levels in based in a world monument starting with the leaning tower of Pisa, I’m not sure what the link is supposed to be as they were never an industrial buildings. There are 12 monuments in all and at least six sections in each giving a fairly lengthy game.
If you like puzzle games, and you want a game you can just pick up at any given moment; but with some time to finish the section, then this is a perfect game to play. I think there is definite replay ability value for this game as you may want to beat your best score.
The music is a mildly annoying perky tune that I was fortunately able to turn off. I put about thirty minutes for the learning curve but it might take a tad longer to get your timing down.
Written by:
~thesage5
