Star Wars Pit Droids
Ages Everyone

When I first looked at the back of the box I figured that it would be an easy assignment to give to some seven year old to review. A preliminary pass on my part was all that would be needed - checking out graphics, playablility, and levels. Well, I'm still playing it, but I didn't want to wait to post this review. The game reminds me of a couple of old favorites Lemmings and the Logical Journey of the Zoombinis (a new Zoombinis is reported to be in the works).

The game's action involves moving a shipment of droids through seven different locations so that they finally end up at the arena where they can do what they were made to do - fix pod racers. A deceptively simple mission. Not so simple - there are barriers, mazes, traps and locks and the droids themselves to contend with. They happily will go in one direction until they bump into one another and end up consigned to a scrap heap.

To accomplish the mission you have to use directional and ratio arrows, sort the droids by various attributes, and use length to manipulate time. You have been using set theory, spatial relationships, ratios and functions and Lucas Learning has made it fun.

While some of the puzzles are complicated - you can always restart and solve them incrementally. The animated droids help by showing choke points that have to be resolved. These droids are such characters that they keep the user amused and involved. They tap their feet in impatience when you are not quick enough to resolve a blockage, throw up their arms in exasperation and fling their tools in the air before jumping down the transit tube. This is one wild and happy bunch of droids.

The whole game is cleverly constructed so you can learn at your own pace and develop your own devious maneuvers. Your first solutions may be gross but as you refine them you become quite pleased at how clever you have become. Elegance and efficiency become necessary as you progress through the game. The scoring is somewhat confusing - you need to have 48 droids to make a transfer unit and 144 to move into a new location and in the more advanced games going back and forth to get the droid minimum feels more complicated than it need be. The box claims that there are 300+ puzzles and I believe it - and that doesn't even count the puzzles that you can design yourself. Hours and hours and hours of fun.

Reviewed by Genevieve