Retro Game of the Day! Quarth

Retro Game of the Day! Quarth

Quarth by Konami, a puzzle game released in various formats in 1990 as part of the Tetris knock-off craze.

SOooo, what is this Quarth, you ask? Sadly, Quarth is another in a long line of unspectacular games, the most fascinating memory of which I have is it's television advertisement, which very briefly showed a nifty little 3D ship blasting cubes in outer space (hmmm, why don't they just make that now). The actual game itself was less than stellar-

So why even mention it? Well, in spite of my dour attitude, the game was actually a bit of fun - I did spend a long dentist's waiting room visit once, just sucked into the GameBoy version. You control a little ship at the screen's bottom, and Tetris-esque shapes fall towards you. Your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to fill in the holes with your (ahem) "Block Gun" to make them complete shapes and therefore disappear. Otherwise, the odd shapes will fall on you and crush you. And you will be dead. Forever. And no one will even remember that you existed, because you died alone in space at the hands of some big floating green blocks.

Anyway, the game was not bad but it did get rather old after a bit. There was some strategy in trying to setup large-fill "combos" and knock out bigger points that way (more gratifying too!) But it was too easy to play it the duller way and just while away time. No wonder we never saw a Quarth 2.

Still, for all of Konami's ingenuity - let's face it, they are one of the top-tier developers in the world - I am a little surprised that this is probably one of the highest-profile puzzlers they've ever produced. Am I wrong - what others have they created? I will likely pick this game up again someday for the heck of it (like I said, the 3D version would be a cool game to make!) but until then, I am probably the only gamer in the world who has any interest in playing Quarth..