Parents' Guide to Pushmo World

Pushmo World's bizarre narrative setup concerning a sumo-wrestling kitty saving kids trapped in a playground doesn't make a lick of sense, but that matters little once you get into the pushmo groove. The puzzles do a terrific job of making players feel clever. You'll frequently get stuck for long minutes before a lightbulb suddenly goes off and illuminates your next move, opening a whole new batch of possibilities. This confers a strong feeling of satisfaction; you'll feel as though you just accomplished something that required serious thought and mental effort -- which, of course, you did.

This particular entry in the series suffers a little from a sense of sameness, keeping very close to the path forged by its predecessors without introducing much in the way of new features or mechanics. But there are a couple of areas in which it delivers quantifiable improvements on the Pushmo formula, most notably when it comes to creating and sharing your own puzzles. Designing puzzles using the GamePad screen -- which is a fair bit larger than a cramped 3DS display -- is much more enticing. Plus, players now can share their creations online and get feedback from other players. This is a huge step up over previous games, which forced players to create, capture, and distribute QR codes for each of their custom puzzles. And, even if you don't want to create your own puzzles, you can still access those made by other players, which means an almost limitless supply of pushmo puzzles to keep you playing once you've finished those crafted by the game's designers.