Musiac Box is a unique combination of a puzzle game and a musical toy that will challenge your brain and delight your ears all at the same time. Using tiles that represent individual musician's portions of a song, arrange the Tetris-like pieces on the grid and listen to the results. It's an extraordinarily simple premise for a game and the "match the tiles to the melody" puzzle solving is surprisingly enjoyable, even for non-music lovers.
The story, though light and hardly necessary, begins with your grandfather calling you to his place promising a spectacular birthday gift. When you arrive you find his "musaic box" along with note telling you to seek outlines for compositions that can be reconstructed with the box. You'll scour the rooms of this dusty old house searching for pieces of outlines hidden all over the place, turning over items and assembling a few simple machines along the way. You'll also be treated to tons of music-related facts as your cursor slides over the scenery before you. The variety of songs you'll assemble is great, featuring classical music from the likes of Mozart and Strauss to well-known folk songs and much more.
Once you find pieces and assemble a composition, head over to the musaic puzzle screen to start the show. At the bottom of the screen is a player that will sound the basic tune of the song you're attempting to compose. There are four musicians, each with his or her window at a corner of the screen and each corresponding to a block color. The columns of the grid can contain only one of each color, which makes sense, as a musican can only play one thing at a time. Listen to the sample, click on a few block pieces to hear their sounds, then start arranging. You'll listen to small snippets of songs over and over again as you try and piece together the whole tune, and the single-click system for listening to sounds works wonders.
You'll have to use a mix of spatial logic and your musical ear to solve puzzles in this game, sometimes more of the former than the latter. The unlimited-use hint button will highlight pieces that are placed in the wrong column, but its up to you to find where to orient them on the Y-axis. A little trial and error goes a long way.
Analysis: Music games always strike a chord with me (yeah, sorry for the pun), as the simple reward of a perfectly arranged song is pleasing on many different levels. Musaic Box taps into this by breaking pieces of music into four parts (instruments), distributing them across a grid, arranging them in block patterns, and tasking you with re-assembling the whole mess. It's great to sit and fiddle with tiles (yes, another pun, but I'm not sorry for that one) and work out both visually and aurally what needs to be changed, tweaking as you go along. When you finish a puzzle a grand sense of accomplishment settles over you.
On the not-so-bright side, Musaic Box offers little replay value (although the "create a tune" unlockable is interesting) and practically no incentive to keep playing other than seeing what kind of music you'll be creating next. The game's adventure/hidden object elements are poorly developed but they do serve as a nice break between puzzle levels.
Despite falling short of bending game genres. Musaic Box is riveting for the several hours you'll spend playing through it. Creating famous songs by arranging blocks is surprisingly fun and offers just the right amount of challenge.
Play Musaic Box (Flash version)
Windows:
Download the demo
Get the full version
Mac OS X:
Not available.
Try Boot Camp or Parallels or CrossOver Games.
I can already see the solution for the remainder of the last screenshot there. Place the two small L pieces up at the top of the hole so they form a flat edge at the bottom. This leaves only one place the large L can fit, and it leaves two perfect holes for the last two pieces.
That's a good game with some unique styles. But dang if I can't get McDonalds Farm out of my head already. Not enough classical pieces to make the game even more enjoyable.
I've played the trial, and I have to say, it was a very entertaining, and fun game. If I had the cash, I would definately buy the game!
Okay, It's really fun, but I'm stuck at Auld Lang Syne. Need some help. Thanks.
It is a fun game, not too challenging, exactly what I need after a day of work. :) And lovely atmosphere to the graphics too.
I played the free trial. I enjoyed the game. But it was toooooo slow to load. My computer is wayyyy faster than that. IT could be there is something it clashed with too I would suppose. But I found it slow loading and it board me after a fashion due to that issue only. Other wise I enjoyed it very much.
Thanks
Keep up the reviews, very enjoyable game.
This game has me ready to throw my computer out the window. How do you get the Projecter to work? How do you get the Music machine to work? When you hit hint how does it work? And how do you fit Blue Danube together?
Ona
I figured out all my problems in the last post except the projector in the second room. If anyone can help me it would be much apriciated.
Ona
You have to move the pipe organ pipe to turn the power on.
Ona
In the first room there is a large box with something missing - How to open it?
I've solved all the music puzzles and thuoght that after that I will be able to open it, but it wasn't it T.T
Was anyone able to open it or is this box simply "preview" to the next game?
I need one more piece for the Ode to Joy puzzle. Also, in the room that looks like a library which contains a safe, where does one get the handle and the paper to operate the printing press.
January 6th comment the handle is by the chairs, plus I'm stuck too. I have one more piece to ode to joy. The map at the top left shows all 0's so I'm assuming I found all the pieces. This can't be the end of the game, you have to open up all the music boxes like the one where you start out. I'm totally confused.
"I have one more piece to ode to joy"
Look at first pages of melody book - you will find one melody unsolved ("Entertainer" or so)
Hi,
I got this game free from gamehouse,(with ads) but hey I dont mind. I love it and I'm going to keep it so that my nephews can play.
I think its a great tool for children to help them develop their tone recognition skills(such as the difference between two sounds that sounds almost exactly alike but for the tone- at least 3 songs in that game had that),
as well as their spatial problem solving skills.
I'm going to recommend it to my friend who is a teacher of 7 to 11 year olds.
Personally, I found that it was great for most ages. Maybe not for children under 5, without supervision, because it does take some skill in manipulating the tiles and also following some of the instructions.
Hello I am stuck on to of the song that do not have the sheet music they are "The Entertainer" and "Auld Lange Syne." I got the other one solved but not these two. Is there any way of going back and getting the to pieces of sheet music for these song? Can you give me a screenshot for these?
Hi. I solved the two songs that I was stuck on and now I am stuck in one of the rooms where I need one more piece and that room is the library. I see the basic press and the little stars shining, but cannot click on it. Please help me. Is there a screenshot that can help me?
I figure out the last piece of the puzzle in the library and finish the song ode of Joy. I finish all five room and now I am really stuck. What do I do now? Someone please help me! They ask to do a creation of one of the song but I was not sure what they meant by that. Can you tell what that means?
Is there anyone there who can help me with this game? I would love to finish it. Hope to get a answer from someone who knows how to play this game.
This game has the most stupid bug ever...
I finished it, and the result after everything is returning to the main menu...
There I found a small text saying that I am "New Player" to click there to rename.
I clicked...
It reseted the game that I just finished.
Idiotic game.
@ Sue and anyone else interested:
There's nothing else to do, you've finished the game! 'Creations' is just a lame subgame where you can deconstruct the songs you've put together throughout the game and listen to the mess you make and have a laugh. Yeah, great fun...
To those having a problem finding the printing press handle in the room with the safe:
I was unable to see the handle at all because my display is wide screen and the game scales incorrectly on them.. (Try looking at the bottom: if the right hand side of the "menu" button is missing you have the same problem).
To fix, just change to windowed mode, scroll over to find the handle, click it, then change back. I was able to finish the game this way, and this was the only time I needed to do it.
To the maker of the game: There seems to be some sort of a bug in the way your game scales for different resolutions. In particular, for 1440x900, (And perhaps all wide screens) instead of scaling to match width, it just scales to match height and then cuts off the right hand side of the screen - pretty disastrous for a hidden object game!!!
Apart from that, great fun game, my two year old loves it and gets up to dance for each of the tunes.
I finished the first three rooms with no pieces left, and I cant get into the library :(
Help?
I'm having the same problem. I have found all of the outlines in the first 3 rooms and I have completed all of the available songs but I still haven't gotten the key for the library. Please Help!
I have finished everything, but can't get into the library... help please...?
I'm also stuck after the first 3 rooms?
I'm in the same debacle as the three before me. All of the walkthroughs I read tell me I get the key to library with the completion of Mozart's No. 40 in G. No key was rewarded after winning the level. Something is fishy.
I'm also having the same issue with the first three rooms, it seems as though there is a bug in the game to me
Anon,
Are you playing the Flash version or the download version of the game?
elle
Same problem. I'm playing the flash version if that's any help.
I just didn't seem to get the key to the library on any of the songs.
how do you get to the library?
I got through the first three rooms, and it didn't give me a key to one of the last two! It ended the game in the middle!
I think the game is supposed to be cut off in the middle. I'm guessing the downloadable version would award you the key upon completion of #40, although it would have been convenient if there was a notice of some kind saying that this was the end of the Flash version, and to continue you'd need to download it. Of course, I could be wrong, and this could be a legitimate bug, but I doubt it since nothing's being done about it so far. At least, not to my knowledge. My knowledge is pitifully small, so maybe I shouldn't be saying anything. Whatever, I'll just submit this comment.
@Axyraandas,
You're right, the Flash version ends sooner than the download version. It would help if it mentioned that there is a download available when that happened. But, it's not a bug. :)
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