Brightly colored shapes and arrows. Classical music. Devious programming puzzles. What do they all have in common? They're all key ingredients in Jahooma's LogicBox, a rather apt name for a game involving lots of boxes and logic and made by a developer named Jahooma.
The tutorial on the first level does a pretty good job of explaining things, but here's a summary: place circles and squares on the grid so that whatever input goes in comes out with the appropriate alterations and/or in the appropriate directions according to the given rules. To accomplish this, place circles and squares on the board by dragging and dropping with the mouse. Everything is click-drag-drop: drop components on and off the grid, drag their arrows to change their output direction, click "go!" to test your solution. Mouse over the description on the bottom to find out more about any component, or the goal at the top to learn more about what you're trying to do. The three smaller buttons beneath the Go button let you pause the simulation, change its speed, or advance it one step at a time.
Like SpaceChem and Robot Unlock before it, Jahooma's LogicBox is a game for programmers, and a good one at that. The tutorial does a great job of explaining things, although the ability to skip it would have been appreciated by the less patient. The graphics and audio are entertaining enough to keep you around, yet minimalistic enough not to distract you. At 18 levels including 4 challenge levels, LogicBox is a little short, but Jahooma promises much more to come. The difficulty curve is perfect and does a good job of making sure you learn what you're supposed to. There's a lot to learn, too, such as memory loading/saving and even recursion, and some completed levels even reappear as components in later levels! One word of warning... components are differentiated by their color, so this might not be a game for the colorblind.
Overall it's not a game to be overlooked, so put your programmer's hat on and come fulfill your daily colored shape quota. What are you waiting for?
Thanks to Satori for sending this one in!