Puzznic (パズニック Pazunikku?) is a tile-matching puzzle arcade game developed and produced by Taito in 1989 and was ported for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, PC Engine, Sharp X68000, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MS-DOS and ZX Spectrum between 1990 and 1991. Home computer ports were handled by Ocean Software; the 2003 PlayStation port was handled by Altron. An Apple IIgs port was completed in 1990, however was never commercially released (a leaked copy was however circulated). A clone for the PC, Brix, was released by Epic MegaGames in 1992. The Japanese arcade and FM Towns version has adult content during game play; a naked woman is revealed at the end of the level.
Puzznic bears strong graphical and some gameplay similarities to Flipull/Plotting. An indie remake was made in 2009 for iPhone, called Gem Panic, and a range of Puzznic clones called ‘Puzzle Magic’ have appeared on mobiles. Many games share the same basic gameplay of Puzznic but have added extra features over the years:- Puzztrix on the web and on PC, Addled and Germinal on the iPhone, Puzzled on mobile phones.
