Fugdale’s Funhouse

“Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket” pops to mind when thinking of this unique offering from Japan.

Hoshi Saga - Star Quality

This unique and beautiful game defies categorization. Part point-and-click…part puzzler…part meditation, its design and execution make it a top contender in any of those genres. It has a simple elegance to it. Incorporating beautiful grayscale graphics and effective appropriate sounds, Hoshi Saga, provides subtle and inspiring gameplay.

To start, you can choose from 25 available puzzles. As you complete rows or columns of puzzles on the grid, bonus puzzles will open up, making 36 in total. You will want to play every one of them.

In each puzzle you have only one objective…find a star. How you find the star varies greatly from each puzzle. I won’t give you any more information than that, because figuring each one out is all the fun. The puzzles come in various degrees of difficulty as indicated by the ’star’ rating for each. However, most people will not have too much difficulty solving any of them as most of the solutions seem very intuitive. You can usually find a star within a few minutes, although a few of the puzzles will take a little thinking to discover where the star lurks. While the game won’t provide any great challenge, the aboslute cleverness of the game will have you in awe.

I found Hoshi Saga extremely lovely and played right through it in one sitting. Even though it has little replay value after you’ve figured out all the solutions, you will want to let your friends know all about it.