Matchstick Puzzle by DS promises a boxful of fun

You might remember back in September publisher Mercury Games announced it was bringing us Matchstick Puzzle by DS. What do you mean, you don't remember? Surely it's not the sort of game you'd forget reading about? Tsk.

Anyway, Mercury has now released a video of the game in action (which you can see here, as part of our video section), as well as some new screenshots. The footage confirms how the game will play – as expected, you use the stylus to move matches around in order to solve puzzles and sums shown on the top screen in either as few moves or as little time as possible.

As matchstick puzzles, along with beer mat origami, are normally pursuits only considered when you're drinking with boring people down your local, it's an interesting concept to turn into a game.

Over 150 puzzles are promised, with four difficulty settings, plus a Time Attack mode in which you have to complete ten random puzzles as quickly as possible – surely a good contender for head-to-head competition. The puzzles themselves seems pretty varied. In one, you're given a couple of matchsticks then asked to make 14 boxes by adding six other matches.

Matchstick Puzzle is due for release in February 2008, after which we eagerly await its inevitable sequel: Get the Coin into the Glass Without Touching the Beer Mat by DS.