A mix of music and puzzle? Sounds interesting.
The 10 MB-large Musaic Box comes in six languages including German, English, French, Italian, Spanish and Russian. Coincidently, those are also the languages most operas were ever written in.
After creating a player name, you are redirected to the main menu, decorated with a beautiful clock and divided into the following categories:
- Game
- Options
- Achievements
- Help
- Credits Discussion
Before you get started, it is absolutely essential that you go through the tutorial to figure out how the game works.
At the beginning of the tutorial, you'll find yourself in room with a piece of sheet music that needs to be collected and placed into your book. In order to open the book, you have to click on it and listen to your grandpa’s messages. One more click redirects you to the music player – the main aspect of Musaic box. Inside the music player you’ll a sheet music stand in a golden frame and a music box. The different musical tidbits need to be arranged correctly in order for the song to sound right. In the tutorial all of the pieces of Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King are arranged correctly beforehand to show you how the game works.
Bits and pieces of very famous tunes are hidden all over the room and must be put back together. Once the pieces have been arranged in the right order, the puzzle/song has been successfully completed. To search for fragments of these musical pieces, simply click on objects located around the room at random. Drawers, notebooks and many other things spread across the room contain segments of sheet music. AS you click and tap on everything in the room, you also get educational information about famous composers and their legacies.
Once you’ve collected all the pieces of a song, you can get started with cracking the puzzle. And this is the point where you realize that this game is actually quite challenging. Thankfully, you are not forced to arrange the pieces based on sound along. Each fragment is also labeled with a special colored symbol, with each color representing a specific audio track (i.e. orange for rhythm, pink for the main melody and so on). To solve a puzzle correctly, same colored pieces cannot be located in the same row.
So the main challenge is to arrange the individual sections of the songs and keep same colored pieces from touching. What may appear to be simple in the beginning becomes pretty complex as the game progresses. In some levels, the main melody is missing altogether and you have to solve the level just going by the colors and geometric shapes of the pieces. If you find yourself hopelessly stuck, you can always get a hint by pressing the menu button.
Just as the puzzles themselves become progressively harder, the click and point adventure aspect of the game also becomes more difficult.
Bottom Line:
I really enjoyed the challenging puzzle and the love for famous classical music piece, which creates wonderful combination. Despite the fact that some of the music sounds like MIDI files from the 90s, it’s still a lot of fun and very enjoyable. The attention to detail and the unique game concept make the entire experience very esthetically pleasing. The education element is also wonderful, allowing you to freshen up on music history as you play. From my perspective, it’s a well-rounded game that really sucks you in. Keep in mind that I am saying as someone that easily gets bored from puzzle games.
A Google User
Apr 26, 2013 3:01:16 PM
Help Can't solve one of d puzzles. Cnt get to room 3.
A Google User
Apr 16, 2013 11:05:30 PM
CaptnzWife Love this game!!!
A Google User
Apr 14, 2013 6:42:01 AM
Bad sound Sound quality bad. Game too short
A Google User
Apr 3, 2013 7:30:12 PM
Love this game. Had installed it a while ago, but stopped playing. Then got back into it. I do have a problem though. I was playing & received a text message. It takes me out of the game everytime. Which is my fault i have pop ups, but once i got back into my game it asked me for my name & it was like i had to log in online again which would be fine if i remembered my log in & i def do not want to start all over again! What can i do i went to the online page & completed the forgot password thing but yet to rec the email.
A Google User
Apr 1, 2013 7:30:25 AM
One of the best games Into the game can't stop playing it it's simply one of the best games I've played if not the best. If ur into classical music or love music reccomended. At first it may seem easy but the levels just keep getting challenging.
A Google User
Mar 23, 2013 4:06:02 PM
Great Game but distorted sound I really do enjoy this game, it's fun and not all that difficult (so far) for me as a musician. However, the only gripe I have is that it seems like the I'm game music level is set way too high and peaking and causing distortion, it's almost enough to make me not play the game since the game revolves around listening to these tunes. Turning the sound on my phone down doesn't change the sound, I'm not clipping my speaker, so the problem lies within the game. Get this solved and I'm 5 stars!
A Google User
Mar 19, 2013 3:19:11 PM
Such fun Just not long enough.
A Google User
Mar 19, 2013 12:48:47 PM
Want my money back I can get into the second room, even though I did get the key. This game is nothing like the pc version. Heard better sound on a 8bit console.
A Google User
Mar 8, 2013 3:16:34 AM
Love So different. And beautiful. Love it
A Google User
Mar 7, 2013 10:50:04 AM
Fun, but flash version sounds better I originally played the free version on Kongregate and fell in love with the game. Wanted access to the last two rooms and to support the developer, so when I got my new tablet, it was one of the few games I paid for. However! The sound quality of the "musaic" pieces is not nearly as clean and music box-sounding as the flash version, and I miss the little windows showing the mechanical musicians. The "musaic" box music sounds muddy in comparison (think bad synth through a cheap greeting card recording), which is surprising since the rest of the sound effects appear to be the same (ie, I don't think it's a sound quality with my headset issue) I also had a weird bug where none of the music would play (even though the sound effects would) and I needed to restart the app in order to get it to work. TL:DR - fun game, but disappointing compared to the flash version. Would be 5/5 if this changed to match the flash version.