Drelbs

There are games that defy all categories, and Drelbs is exactly such a case. This wonderfully charming arcade game combines logic, action and a pinch of surrealism into a package that has no equal in the eight-bit era. Even the name alone — Drelbs — sounds as if cut out of a child's dream, and the whole game looks that way too.

Your task is to rotate tiny doors placed in a grid so as to enclose square cells. Each enclosed cell disappears, and you gradually fight your way toward the goal, with all sorts of opponents on your heels. The door-rotating mechanic is ingeniously simple to understand, but it requires planning several moves ahead — you have to think as in a puzzle, while your body reacts as in an action game.

The visual side is what sets Drelbs apart from the competition. The characters have a distinctive, adorably bizarre design, the animations overflow with personality, and the whole game breathes a peculiar atmosphere that other titles of the time can hardly match. It is one of those cases where the artistic conception is just as important as the game mechanics.

The game was created in the first half of the eighties, at a time when the Atari 8-bit was being experimented on with all kinds of ideas and when the genres were not yet firmly set in concrete. It was precisely this freedom that made such an unusual title possible. Drelbs is a testament to the creative freedom of the early gaming scene, when creators could come up with anything that occurred to them.

Today Drelbs is more of a cult item for connoisseurs — a game remembered by those who discovered it back then, and one that retro fans rediscover with relish. Its combination of logic and action is timeless and can still absorb you for hours.

Why play: An unusual blend of puzzle and arcade with an unmistakable charm that today's games rarely offer anymore.