Cleopatra Fortune (1996)

This comment by Nucleotyde is what prompted me to play this one... and my thoughts on this game are pretty much the exact same! Cleopatra Fortune rocks. It's reminiscent of falling block tile-matching puzzle games like Tetris, Puyo Puyo, Money Puzzle Exchanger, etc. But there's a different feel to this one. You are trying to arrange blocks to make full lines like in Tetris, and you are trying to set up chains like in Puyo Puyo -- but that's where the similarities end.

The goal for this one is to surround jewels and golden sarcophagus coffins with the Egyptian stone hieroglyph blocks. Create a full circle with no gaps, and all the treasures will disappear... and then all the blocks above those treasures will fall down (and potentially line up like in Tetris -- full lines of blocks disappear). When treasures or blocks disappear, you earn points -- the more treasures, the more points... and the higher the combo, the more points. It's as fun as it is addicting, and it's very addicting.

I'll also throw out that the presentation is great for this one. The ancient Egypt theme of it all is great, and I dig the music (both in the arcade version, and the Dreamcast version I played). And also, Cleopatra is cute -- I like how she reacts to how well (or how poorly) you're doing in the game. (And ultimately will always despair when you finally lose... sad day.)

One of the many falling block puzzle games that came out in the '90s, Cleopatra Fortune distinguishes itself from the rest of the crowd with its unique ruleset. There are three block types: stone blocks, treasures, and mummies. Any type of block can be cleared by creating a complete line of that type, but treasures can also be cleared by completely surrounding them with stone blocks. Mummies will also be cleared when they are surrounded by stone blocks, but only if a treasure is entombed with them. It's a fun twist to the usual falling block formula that forces you to think about your strategy differently than in other puzzlers.

The complexity of the rules means that it's a lot harder to recover from mistakes than it is in a game like Tetris, which can be frustrating. It's very easy to drop a treasure in the wrong place and have things spiral out of control as you struggle to close off a tomb around it. But that also means that when you do manage to dig yourself out of a hole, it's extremely satisfying. While the game is certainly challenging, it never feels unfair, and the difficulty curve is smooth. New mechanics are introduced gradually, and the fall speed will slow down every few levels to let you catch a breath.

In addition to the great gameplay, the game has a great soundtrack and visuals. It would have been really easy to have put some generic Egyptian sounding music in the game, but they went the extra mile. There's only a handful of tracks, but I never get tired of them. If you're a fan of puzzle games and looking for something new, this is a hidden gem that you should check out.