Pushmo, released earlier today on the Nintendo eShop, is a new 3D puzzle game from Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. Having had ample time to play through a bunch of the game’s puzzles and even create my own, I’m here now to give a rundown of my impressions with the game thus far…

What I like…

 A nice, quick and small back story + tutorial gets you on your way to solving puzzles quickly and easily without any fuss.

 Controls are extremely intuitive and tight, as you’d expect from any top tier Nintendo game. Jumping feels good and natural, as does pushing and pulling.

 The presentation is flawless for such a small title. There’s an overall polish to the game that’s hard to ignore. From the cute creatures, to the colorful environments and fitting music, it’s quite an attractive and inviting game to experience.

 The price is right. At $6.99 (+ tax), you’re getting what you pay for and then some: 250 puzzles included plus the ability to create your own and share them with others = endless fun.

 The puzzles themselves are instantly engaging and while extremely easy at first (in typical Nintendo fashion), the difficulty increases as you move along and as new unlockable items are introduced. Plus you get to create your own puzzles!

 Create your own puzzles?? Why, yes, thank you very much! I will and then some. Seriously, the puzzle creator is so easy to use and so much fun that it’s hard to put down. This alone makes Pushmo a budget title worth owning, because with 90 slots with which to hold yours and others’ creations (which you can share with anyone), you will likely be playing this game for a loooong time.

Here’s one I created earlier that you can scan and try for yourself if you have the game:

What I don’t like…

 While not a big deal, the inclusion of a time trial to see how fast you can solve a puzzle would be nice. Perhaps even online leaderboards to see who can solve puzzles the quickest.

 QR codes for puzzles that you create go straight to the SD card, but there’s no quick and easy way to share your puzzles with others without having to remove the SD card and retrieving the snapshot of your QR code first. It’s workable, but annoying. Perhaps a way to send puzzles to your friends online while in the game itself would have been nice, but then, this is a budget title so you can’t expect too much.

Conclusion

So there you have it. I’m completely enamored by this game and I’ve barely spent much time with it, really. I’m only on the second set of puzzles and it looks like I have a ways to go yet. I think it’s safe to say that this game is the best seven dollars I’ve spent in quite some time.

That does it for my impressions at the moment, but if I come up with anything else worth mentioning, I’ll update this post.