Written by Otaku Apologist
While the storytelling of Naughty Nyx is “interesting” to say the least, it was the puzzle design that captivated me. So many levels that I eventually crushed after numerous humiliating attempts seemed impossible. Until the very last move, I believed not in my chances. I remember the many times, just as I was sighing in frustration at yet another failure, my mouse pointer creeping towards the “X” in my browser tab, eyes spotting that final conceivable move to trigger a winning combo.
And the orgasmic explosions followed. How the fuck I even did that, the mystery remains unresolved.
This level is a great example. You don’t see it here, but that circle pot with white stuff in it situated at the middle is called a “spawner”. It spawns clouds, which spread like a plague. Seemingly easy level? Fuck no.
The craziest thing is, the way it seems, the mindboggling level design is a result of the free-to-play business model. While most games with this model are casual fodder, with gameplay bordering on braindead skinnerbox bullshit, in this particular title, the business model seemingly incentivized the developer to create the hardest puzzles they could possibly make.
Let’s not sugarcoat this, some levels are so hard, I dare say it is virtually impossible to beat them without using some boosters. You also have a limited amount of energy points to cast special spells that give you free extra moves, explosive blocks, and more. To beat the extremely hard bunch of puzzles, you’ll want lots of energy stocked before an attempt. It recovers over time, but you can also fill up by spinning the lucky wheel, or doing the obvious they want and buying the boosters.
Read our official review of Naughty Nyx! Discover lots of more free games we’ve reviewed.
The above level is a fine-ass specimen of a head-scratcher. There’s a lot of static blocks, which can be so grating to match. You got ice blocks that take multiple nearby matches to break, plus these prison things. Below screenshot shows how the level develops when you start breaking it apart. Note, the screenshot is of a failed attempt. I haven’t beaten this at the time of writing.
One more move and too much to do. Yeah, fuck you too.
The most unfathomable levels I’ve encountered so far featured chameleon blocks. The colors of all blocks change when you match chameleon blocks. I didn’t know what I was doing at all, but somehow still beat a couple such challenges.
Then there’s levels that feature time bomb blocks. At first, I didn’t even realize why I was losing. But after noticing the timer attached to these bomb blocks ticked away each turn, I started matching those fuckers before they hit zero.
And because the designer of this game is some kind of sadist, I found myself in levels with both chameleon blocks and time bomb blocks and prison things, because why not?
If you don’t think that’s ridiculous, there’s more. Some levels feature cloud blocks. God fuck these clouds, they’re your worst enemies. In many levels, I lost bitterly, because these damned cloud blocks randomly decide to expand to cover one of the nearby blocks. Their behavior can very suddenly create impossible scenarios. You’ll lose a level just randomly!
At moments like this, I was tempted to just send an angry rant at Erogames’ tech support. You game is a broken! But then, as I kept retrying and revising my strategies with growing understanding of the mechanics, there always came that fateful attempt that resulted in a narrow victory. I went through this rollercoaster enough times to grow an appreciation.
This was the ass-kicking my overgrown ego had needed. To be challenged, bewildered, grinding my teeth. When was the last time a game beat me this hard? Indeed, this is the golden grail of intellectual ass-kicking, or self-flagellation!
I cannot recommend this enough, assuming you enjoy match-3 gameplay. You’ll breeze through the tutorial, nothing special there, but very quickly you start hitting wall after wall, that you have to overcome with your smarts alone as the complexity and variety of blocks and layouts escalates to test the very limits of your tolerance.
Just look at this. How does one even begin to explain this clusterfuck?
Miraculously, I actually beat this one on first try, despite these godless cloud blocks. I was likely just lucky with their spawns. I also used Shiny’s ability to make the two lips touch the bottom, which is the victory condition here. Shiny’s spell switches the places of two nearby blocks. Basically, an extra turn. So, technically I cheated.
You can play Naughty Nyx for free at Erogames. It’s also available for mobile devices.
