Parallel World is a puzzle video game developed by EIM and published by Varie. It was released in Japan for the Family Computer on August 10, 1990. The player and his girlfriend must find their way back home after being sucked into an alternate universe. A magnificent castle full of 25 different game worlds block their progress, however, and they are filled with enemies on every stage. The player has an overhead view to destroy the enemies for extra loot. Given a strict time limit of 100 seconds to solve each puzzle, the game rewards fast puzzle solvers. The first player controls the male while the second player controls the female. Players only start with three lives and lose them when time runs out or when a monster comes into contact with him/her. Enemies in the game include springs, rollers, witches, and zombies.
Reviews View More
Parallel World is a surprisingly good, if not particularly original, puzzle game. When I first looked at gameplay screenshots, I admit that I didn’t think much of it, but now that I’ve actually tried it, I’ve been pleasantly surprised.
The game stars two children who witness the sky break open and are drawn into the void and, thus, a parallel world. They see some sort of strange castle and feel compelled to explore it. Or something. That’s what I got out of the game’s introduction, anyway.
Speaking of, the intro is actually rather pretty. Colors are used well, the characters are animated competently, and the hole breaking open in the sky is a fairly neat effect. That said, the actual levels in the game, which are very much tile-based, feel much more cluttered than they actually are. This is probably in part due to the dancing thingies that border the level, and in part due to the checkerboard pattern of the floor. It creates a lot of visual noise which, personally, I could have done without.
The game itself is fairly standard puzzle fare. Your objective is twofold - first, you need to push the path-patterned pillars into enemies to crush them. One of them will be carrying a key that will unlock the door to the next area. Second, once the door is open, you need to manipulate the pillars with paths drawn on them to let you reach the exit. You do this by pushing them around and rotating them to create a single steady line from an immovable white pillar to the exit door. It gets difficult pretty quickly.