ClockWerx Download (1995 Puzzle Game)

Despite the box's proud claim that ClockWerx was created by the designer of the much beloved Tetris, the game lacks all the charms of a good puzzler while focusing on the hair-pulling frustrations of a bad one. There's no real sense of accomplishment or challenge, just annoyance.

As you navigate your spinning clock hand along a maze of dots, all sorts of troublesome obstacles jump in the way. Other spinning clock hands and oil slicks are too silly to inspire any fear, and the fact you blow up if you hit one of them seems quite excessive. While the keyboard controls are a bit easier to master than the mouse (though the latter requires more to remember), both require a precise timing that severely takes away from gameplay, removing any bit of fun you might have.

Later levels have way-station dots where you can save your progress if you land on them, but the game's greatest flaw is that you can blow up and lose all your hard work by making just one small mistake, which is incredibly easy to do. Once this occurs more times than you're willing to count, you'll wonder why you're still playing, and odds are, you won't be for long.

While the color-coded clock hands and dots make the game fairly clear, the only reward for landing on the goal dot is a rundown of the points accumulated in the level. Even though problem-solving skills are definitely challenged by the game and more than one way to solve a level may be possible, for the most part, you'll need to move in a prescribed sequence, which restricts creative thinking. ClockWerx covers the "puzzle" aspect, but misses on the "game" part.

If you're a fan of Alexey Pajitnov and his work on Tetris, save yourself the aggravation of ClockWerx and go play the classic instead. The problem is that ClockWerx doesn't really support its name.

Graphics: Graphics are merely adequate, simplistic, and uninteresting, despite some bright colors.

Sound: The sound effects work, but are loud and repetitive.

Enjoyment: The concept is not interesting and gameplay isn't fun or entertaining.

Replay Value: Frustration will keep most players from gaining any replay value.

Clockwerx is a puzzle game. The objective is to move your swinging clock hand around a screen full of dots, avoiding enemies. You can jump from dot to dot, change direction, trip switches, and more.

Clockwerx is a delightful action puzzle game of split-second thought and timing. The plot: someone must journey into the inner workings of the great Clock of the Universe to repair it. The player must maneuver a spinning clock hand from one part of a grid to a gateway that leads to the next level. Over 100 exciting play fields include such obstacles as enemy clock hands, oil globs and spikes. Overall, it's an addictive game that's not for the easily frustrated or for those who hate arcade elements in puzzle games.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

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