AIM Productions’

Brainstorm advertises as a "completely insane

action-puzzle game will change your mind forever." 

While that’s certainly marketing hyperbole, I did find

the game both challenging and fun.  As a game

players whose eye-hand coordination leaves a bit to be

desired (OK, leaves a lot to be desired), I like games

that involve at least as much strategy as they do

reaction speed.  Brainstorm is actually more

strategy than speed, so I like it a lot.  I

originally expected a series of different types of

puzzle-games.  Brainstorm isn’t that.  All

of it’s levels have the same basic play.  That

made me worry that game-play would get boring and the

levels would be indistinguishable after a while, but as you

precede up the levels, new elements are added to the

game-play calling for new strategies.  I also

appreciate having a demo available.  With games,

this is incredibly important as, games may perform

exactly as they’re described in their advertising and

still not be what your or I would find enjoyable.  It’s hard to

tell when you’re looking at still screens.  I was

able to tell from the two demo levels that this was a

game I’d like to play.  Also important, AIM also managed to keep

    The graphics on this

game are really well done.  This isn’t a game

that requires great graphics as the elements of

game-play are essentially icons, but I appreciate that

AIM went the extra mile to make the game visually

attractive.  Another great feature, especially

for those iPAQ 3800 owners, is that you can set the

color brightness level of the game.  On my

Jornada 568, the default brightness was fine, but I

was glad that I could tweak it up if I wanted to play

     The program setup is

pretty much standard fare.  You run the

installation program, it copies some files to a

directory on your desktop system, and then starts up

the Add/Remove Programs applet in ActiveSync. 

Unlike some software, you can install Brainstorm

anywhere; to main memory or to a storage card. 

It automatically adds it’s icon to your Games folder

in your Start menu.  It also adds an icon

pointing to it’s HTML help file, which you read

through Pocket Internet Explorer.  I didn’t

notice that at first and I went to play the game

without any instructions (and, of course, failed

miserably).  Fortunately, it was pretty obvious

what the second icon was for and, after reading the

instructions, I was able to play the game quite

enjoyably.  The game also features 10 tutorial

Brainstorm play is fairly simple:  You have tiles

that have colors on them.  The object of the game

is to move the tiles so that all the tiles of the same

color are touching each other.  When you succeed

in putting all the tiles of each basic color together,

the tiles burst and you will that level.  Sound

easy?  Sure it does, but just wait.  The

tiles come in four basic colors and two special

colors.

The four basic colors (red, blue, yellow, and green)

each have a direction which the will "fall" if nothing

is in their way.  You can move the basic tiles

manually perpendicular (orthogonally) to the direction

they "fall" but you can’t "lift" them.  White

tiles can be moved in any direction, but they don’t

fall.  Black tiles can’t be moved at all. 

But wait!  There’s more:

Tiles will fall until they land on another tile or on

a "blocker."  They’ll even fall around from one

side of the screen to the other.

Some tiles are "screwed" into place.  Like the

black tiles, the can’t be moved.  Unlike black

tiles, they still have to be touching a tile of their

color.

You also have color changers.  If a tile falls

into one of these colors, the tile will change to the

color of the changer.  This can set up an

interesting series of reactions if a tile falls into

one changer, changes colors, and so falls in a

different direction into another changer.  You

have to think these series out in advance to get the

right results.

This is a color cycler.  If a tile hits this,

it becomes the next color in the rotation.  This

is a counterclockwise cycler.  There are also

clockwise cyclers.

There are also "movers" which will move a tile in the

direction of the arrow regardless of gravity.

There are even "teleporters" which will cause a tile

to appear in a completely different space of the

Brainstorm grid.

Then there are the "black holes" which simply eat the

tiles unfortunate enough to hit them. 

Unfortunately, you can sometime lose a tile you might

need later into a black hole.

This is a color gate.  The one shown will stop

any tile other than blue ones.

This is a color store.  This one will store up

yellow tiles.  If you click it, it will release

one tile.

  Finally,

this is a "link pad."  It will link tiles of any

As you can see, there are a wide variety of game

elements and each level uses them differently. 

That’s why each level can continue to be challenge

even though the idea of the game-play is so simple. 

Each level also has a time limit, which, when expired,

triggers an automatic restart of the level.  You

     As I mentioned, it

wasn’t obvious at first that there was a full HTML

help file installed with the program.  After I

found it, that help file gave me all the information I

needed to play the game.  The game also includes

10 tutorial levels which also help to show you how the

various game elements work and help you develop

Brainstorm is compatible

with all Pocket PCs (ARM, MIPS, or SH3) including

the Compaq iPAQ, Jornada 54x and 56x, Cassiopeia E

and EM series, etc.  It is compatible with Pocket

PC 2000 and Pocket PC 2002 and has a very small footprint:

The full game takes up 600 kb of Storage on your Pocket

PC.  While running it takes about 2.09 MB of

Program Memory.  You can install the game to

There aren’t any overt bugs in the program or in the

installation routines.  There is one flaw,

however:  There is no "Pause" to halt a game it

progress.  You can fake one by pressing the

"Help" button, which does pause the game in progress,

then press the "Back to Game" button to return to

game-play.  One other feature that would add

interest to the game would be a level editor so you

To their credit, AIM even allows you do overcome the

dark display on the iPAQ 3800.  The one thing I

wish they had done was tell you specifically that the

on-line help file was there, maybe in the startup

screen for the game.  It might also be nice to

have a scoring system and a high-scores screen. 

Even when your only opponent is your last score,

topping your personal best gives you a nice endorphin