Perplexus Diodomin: A 2002 Puzznic-Style Puzzler That Never Found a Publisher
Despite the store label, Perplexus Diodomin is not a role-playing game. It is a Game Boy Advance puzzler from 2002, in the style of the old arcade puzzler Puzznic, and it was never released. You rescue the Diodomin, a kind of space creature that has been captured, by solving block puzzles to free them. The small team behind it built a vertical slice and pitched it to publishers, but there was little interest.
At a glance
- Created by: James Boulton (code, tile graphics), James Barnard (tile graphics, music) and Jamie Bamborough (character sprites)
- Year: 2002
- Genre: puzzle
- How far it got: about 20 percent complete, with roughly three creatures to rescue
- What sets it apart: a lost GBA puzzler whose developer shared the final development build himself
How it came about
Boulton was a long-time Puzznic fan from the Atari ST days. He first wrote a Puzznic-style game for the Palm Pilot, which was ported to PocketPC and sold only a few hundred copies, and then he and friends moved the idea to the Game Boy Advance.
Why it stopped
In his own view the game had no licence attached and the cost of making cartridges left little profit, so he doesn't think it was ever likely to be published. The preview build was later shared through the site Games That Weren't, and James Barnard's music turned out to have been reused in the Game Boy Advance version of Monopoly, developed by Full Fat.