JORAM RAFALOWICZ Cofounder of WeirdBeard Games, based in Amsterdam
If it wasn’t for Super Rare Games sending us a Switch review copy of Tricky Towers we’d have never been aware of this charming competitive puzzler. We only needed a few plays to realise how much fun it is, and it came as something as a surprise to learn that Tricky Towers made its debut in 2016. It was an even bigger surprise that its origins go back further and, despite its Tetris sheen, has ties to an old Wii game.
“It all started in 2007 with a minigame called ‘Block Star’ in WarioWare: Smooth Moves!,” reveals Joram Rafalowicz, the creative director and cofounder of WeirdBeard Games. “You had to stack a couple of blocks on a platform and keep it balanced by holding the Wiimote on the palm of your hand. We really liked that minigame, but it was quite short, so we wondered what would happen if you could just keep on stacking, building a tower.” That pondering led to the team creating a flash game called 99 Bricks the following year, which was then updated for mobile in 2014 as 99 Bricks Wizard Academy.