Puzzle Panic

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Puzzle Panic

Puzzle Panic is a 1984 puzzle game created by Ken Uston in collaboration with designers Ron Karr, Bob Polin, and Paul Wernick. Ken Uston was better known as a blackjack player and strategist, but he was also a video game author and the creator of Puzzle Panic. The game was originally released on the Commodore 64 and Atari 400/800 in 1984, but later received an MSX port in 1986 by SystemSoft.

Puzzle Panic is more of a minigame compilation than a defined puzzle game. There are eleven different "levels" that can be played, each of which is somehow a pattern based short puzzle game. These range from collecting certain items in a specific order, to reaching a set point under certain conditions.

The player begins the game in a room filled with question marks. There are two doors available, and walking into each one teleports the player to a new game (while the other brings the player to a new room, with two different doors; essentially a hub world). Within these games, there are several modes of difficulty to play through (accessed through three different doors within each game) before moving onto a different screen. All of the games can be accessed at anytime by bringing up the menu (by pressing F2).

When the games are played in order rather than by the menu selection, they are (in reality) part of a larger puzzle, where each puzzle is actually represented by its own symbol, and interaction with the gates at the end of each is integral. In fact, the final puzzle requires the player to select the symbol that represents each level, as well as the order they were played in sequence. The final puzzle was known as "Metasequence," Ken Uston's "ultimate challenge." This larger puzzle was originally intended to be part of a real life contest, where players who managed to complete the puzzle in time (by August 31, 1984) won a trip to Atlantic City with Ken Uston.(Giant Bomb)