BoxWorld 2 is a puzzle game, where the player have to reach the exit of the stage, in order to advance to the next level.
Even if it sounds easy, various obstacles are placed around, making the goal harder than it seems at first sight.
At some stages, there are holes, which can be filled with the boxes placed around. There are several types of boxes - the orange and green are normal ones, which can be pushed around.
The grey boxes, called IceBoxes, when pushed will slide away if there is no wall, hole or another box to stop them. Because the player can not go over the holes, he have to think of strategy
to pass them with the use of boxes, or be careful with them, so the boxes which may be in need for other passages, does not fall in random holes.
If the player gets stuck, he can retry the level with the expense of one life. If all the lives are gone, the game is over and he have to start over or load his last saved position.
The game progress can be saved any time by just pressing the S key, and can be loaded at later time, by pressing the L. Loading of game will stop the player from appearing in the hall of fame, where the
best players names are kept, along with the stage reached, total number of pushes and moves. The game on MacOS X is played in window at the desktop. The music can be stopped any time by pressing the M key. The version provided here have 34 stages, with varius difficulty, ranging from very easy, to hard.
As the difficulty progress over the stages, the player gains more and more experience and his motivation is kept over the game. The different music at every stage is another motivation factor, making the
player wanting to go further. But the further levels are harder to pass, giving even better motivation.
Some levels lack holes at all, and look like ordinary levels, but the boxes need to be arranged in very special way, so the player can pass.
Some stages have more than one exit, but just reaching one of them is enough. Most of the time, the second exit is unreachable and set there to
look like genuine exit and force the player lose lives, until coming with the real solution of the stage.
With the different box types, several exits and holes, there is possibility for great many stages. The game is more easier
than the other puzzles around, but completing it is not that easy task.
The player can be controlled with the use of joystick or keyboard. For better retro gaming experience, the use of analog
joystick is recommended.
To work on MacOS X, the SDL and SDL_mixer frameworks are required to be installed in the /Library/Frameworks folder. These
frameworks are available for download from the Simple DirectMedia Layer site.
After writting the AmigaOS 3.x version, mostly reusing the code base, already written for the previous box games, I ported it to Windows as well, and then to the Apple Mac OS X, with the use of the SDL library.
The assembler player used in the AmigaOS 3, does not work on the newer Amiga machines, because of the direct hardware access it does.
This is no longer a problem with the new, rewritten from scratch game engine, done with portability in mind.
The game is set as a sequel of the game BoxWorld. It is also avaiable
for Amiga and Windows. For the puzzle fans around, BoxWorld 2, along with the other puzzle games around is highly recommended.