Puddle is a physics based puzzle platform game from the winner of GDC 2010′s Independent Games Festival Student Showcase Division. It was highly acclaimed by many people, and now it has arrived on PSN and XBLa as a downloadable game for those who haven’t had the chance to give it a go. So is it worth the $9.99 or 800 Microsoft Points asking price? Read on to find out.

Puddle is one of the most unique puzzle games we have played in quite some time. Your goal in most levels is to guide a puddle of water from the beginning of a level to the end, but instead of moving the puddle you move the world itself to make the puddle go in certain directions. It sounds quite easy, and the first level or two are quite easy as they just introduce you into the controls and how the game works. While guiding your liquid through levels, you will have a meter at the top of your screen telling you exactly how much liquid you still have left. If you lose a certain amount of your puddle it’s game over, and back to the beginning of the level.

Although the first level is quite easy, straight after you are introduced into obstacles which ramp up the difficulty and make it possible for you to fail your mission. Some of the obstacles you may face will include things such as fire, which if you touch or stay near for to long will make the water near it or in it evaporate, decreasing your meter. The game gets way to difficult in later levels, which can lead to some annoyances and frustrate you quite a bit, as it really can get very hard at times. Some levels have you guiding your water, but at some points you may have to hit a ramp, but at a certain speed, so you don’t go far enough to hit the fire, but you have to ramp far enough to get into a hole, it may sound easy but when you play it it’s actually quite difficult to hit the right speed even though the controls for the game are great and basic, sometimes you go to fast, or to slow leading to death and frustratingly being put back to the beginning.

The controls as I mentioned above are very basic, you have three different control options for the game. You can either use the trigger buttons, use six axis on your PS3 controller, or use your Playstation Move controller if you have one, to rotate the levels and guide your puddle to safety. I found the six axis controls to feel the best to play with, but the other two work quite good as well.

One of Puddles strong points is it’s visuals, we have seen many impressive PSN games in the past in terms of visuals, and Puddle is one of those games. The visuals are gorgeous in the game, and they change quite a bit. One moment you could be in a very colorful area, the next you’re tin a level where the background is a sheet of paper, and the entire level looks like it has been sketched onto the paper background. The visuals really are one of Puddles strong points, and some of the best I have seen in a downloadable game for some time.

Overall Puddle is quite a good physics based puzzler, if you enjoy puzzle games at all your going to enjoy this, the physics are great, the puzzles are challenging, the game looks gorgeous and it features a boat load of levels for you to attempt, with nearly all of them giving you a challenge. If your not to big on puzzlers or get frustrated easily with games, then Puddle may be to much for you, as I mentioned before it is very challenging and the later levels can really get to you and force you to quit and come back later. If your looking for a new puzzle game, or just a fun downloadable game, I highly recommend you check out Puddle, at $9.99, or 800 Microsoft Points.

Final Score 4/5