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App Army Assemble: Boxville - "Should you take a trip to Boxville for some point-and-click fun?"

We ask the App Army

App Army Assemble: Boxville - "Should you take a trip to Boxville for some point-and-click fun?"
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| Boxville

Boxville is a delightful-looking point-and-click adventure game about cans living in the titular city. After a terrifying earthquake, protagonist Blue Can embarks on a journey to find his friend and discover why the disaster happened in the first place. It's an important task, so we handed the game to our App Army to see if they were up for the challenge.

Here's what they said:

Eduard Pandele

A classic wordless adventure game in the mould of Machinarium - the same type of visual puzzles, the same type of doodle-based communication between the characters. The art was really nice, too bad the game didn't use the whole screen at times (which made me squint even harder on my phone - this is a game that's best played on a tablet). Liked the music, too. Sole blemish: either my fingers are too big to play on the phone, or the hitboxes are too small. All in all, a nice game - just play it on a big-screen phone or a tablet.

Michael Purdy

Point-and-click adventure puzzle game with a hand-drawn art style. You play as a can, making yourself through the city using items to solve puzzles. Much like classic games of its type from the 1990s. The art style is very nice and I really enjoy the wordless puzzles and storytelling by way of comic panels. I did find the touch controls to be a little finicky and unresponsive at times

Mark Abukoff

This is a charming hand-drawn puzzle-solving adventure/story game. Plenty of interesting can characters communicate primarily through doodles drawn on cardboard. I enjoyed the art style and quirky characters as well the music and sounds. The puzzles were occasionally hard to figure out, so I found myself once or twice looking for walkthroughs, but overall they weren’t too difficult. Controls seemed to stick once or twice. Once I had to close out the game and reopen it to get the character to move, but that could have been a problem on my end. Overall, a pleasant experience and one that I’m sure puzzle fans will appreciate.

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Oksana Ryan

This is a brilliant game for anyone who loves a good puzzler. The graphics are colourful and the controls are straightforward to master. Everywhere you turn there is a puzzle to solve or an action to perform, there’s never a dull moment. At times it has you scratching your head but by walking around, picking up any and all objects that are strewn around, there is always something that gives the inspiration to help you move forward. The storyline is good and although there is no verbal communication between the characters, they exchange cardboard drawings which explain their situation. As an avid puzzler, I really enjoyed this game and would definitely recommend it.

Robert Maines

Boxville is basically a point-and-click adventure in the mode of the old PC games. Boxville is occupied by sentient tin cans and something is shaking up the city this initially causes the player's tin can to lose his dog (a smaller can). Now you must guide the player around the city, using found items and solving puzzles to progress.

The art in this game is really good and although the animation is basic it does the job. The only fly in the ointment is the difficulty of some of the puzzles which are exacerbated by the lack of dialogue. You are given picture clues but these can be difficult to decide. The game is also quite short. If you liked the old point-and-click adventures of old then Boxville will entertain you.

Sangeet Shukla

In order to move on in Boxville's story about a can, we have to set things right with objects and characters. While there are no spoken words, the SFX and music create a dynamic atmosphere. The graphics have a distinct style with adorable characters and excellent environment design that go well together.

In addition to a fault I initially encountered a bug that was fixed by using a controller which is followed by multiple instances where touch does not respond at all or I have to tap multiple times, the user interface and controls are both lacking. There is no assistance if you get stuck. Try the free demo to avoid this. Expect a short playtime with the game.

Jojó Reis

A puzzle game very well done, starting with its graphics that look like a kind of movie, with nice sound effects to listen to. As a puzzle game, you will at all times unravel a solution to get out of each screen, it is super pleasurable for you to reason to solve the puzzles, I loved it and recommend it to those who like these types of games, you won't regret it.

What is the App Army?

The App Army is Pocket Gamer's lovely community of mobile game experts. As often as possible, we ask them for their thoughts on the latest games and share them with you.

To join, simply head over to either our Discord Channel or Facebook Group and request access by answering the three questions. We'll then get you in right away.

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Stephen Gregson-Wood
Stephen Gregson-Wood
Stephen brings both a love of games and a very formal-sounding journalism qualification to the Pocket Gamer team.