[solved: Gruntz] 1995-2005 PC strategy/puzzle game with jelly-men

przecze · Post by **przecze** » Sun Sep 20, 2020 11:45 am

Hello, staight to buisness:
Year:
I'm pretty sure I didn't play it later than 2005 and not earlier then 2000 (I was born in 1995, so I was 5 in 2000). But it was in Poland so it's possible that this game reached us with some delay, so 1995 would be also a possible release date.
Language:
I was probably too young to read or care about interface. So it's possible that it wasn't English at all. So theoretically it even could be a game released in Poland only, but I doubt it.
Platform:
It was a family PC - I don't remember that we ever had pure DOS so I guess it was Win 95 or Win XP.
Gameplay:
From what I remember you control a group of characters made of jelly (one to three of them on different levels) and need to lead them through a maze with various puzzles. So you have to use one jellyman to press a button and then another one can go through a gate to press another button. Something like that.
Graphics:
I'm pretty sure it wasn't "drawn" so I guess it was 3d but I'm almost sure it was with isometric "bird-eye" view.
Various other details:
* Thinking about it now, maybe they were not jelly-men but some mono-chromatic aliens? I think "jelly" is in my memory because when one of the little one died, it would leave just a green (or other color?) stain behind.
* Speaking of dying, some of your jellymen could wear a colander on their heads for protection (saving them from single "hit" or something like that).
* It's possible that there were "enemy" jellies on some level with different color
* Sometimes your characters would have to dig something. They would sometimes whistle why doing it. I remember talking to my brother / cousin "he whistles, so it means he is in good mood" - but I don't actually remember anything else about "mood" mechanics in this game it would also not fit the rest of gameplay. So maybe it was a default / random animation while digging.
* It might be that this game was just a "mini game" provided on one CD with some other games

Actually I think I might have been really young while playing it, so maybe some of these details are completely untrue. But well, any guesses are welcome!
Thanks a lot!

przecze · Post by **przecze** » Mon Sep 21, 2020 2:38 am

Looks like Reddit was faster to help (I also asked on r/tipofmyjoystick)
The game in question is Gruntz

Post by **MrFlibble** » Mon Sep 21, 2020 1:57 pm

Good to know, and thanks for letting us know!