Puzzle Guzzle is a strange little brew.

From the moment you load up Agetec’s budget-priced Puzzle Guzzle, you’ll wonder what the developers were drinking. It’s got a weird roster of psychedelic geometric mascots to challenge. To clear the board of pieces, you construct polygonal shapes on diagonals instead of a vertical or horizontal axis. It generates your daily fortune. Yes, this game puts a lot of unconventional twists on the usual puzzle formula. But in addition to its weirdness, it’s also a fun little bargain game.

Everything about Puzzle Guzzle’s presentation reminds you of its Japanese heritage. Its PSP preview screen proudly proclaims “Puzzles for Love” between two hand drawn people waving their arms almost in a state of fear. The character creation screen not only lets you name your toon, but assign it a gender, personality, and astrological sign as well. Depending on your choice, you’ll either get a box (male) or ball (female) as your avatar, complete with a hand scribbled face drawn on it.

Over the course of gameplay, you’ll be able to further customize your character by stealing body parts, accessories, voices, or signature attacks from your defeated opponents. There are hundreds of virtual items to collect, so if you’re of the "gotta catch ‘em all mentality" there’s some incentive to trudge through the 10x10 matrix of computer-controlled challengers. Of course, if you’re in the "I don’t give a crap about collecting meaningless virtual trinkets" camp, you’ll get more mileage from the puzzles themselves.

The single player experience consists of three different game types: Drop Puzzle, Stuffit Puzzle, and Quiz Puzzle. Drop Puzzle has you rotating angular pieces to form polygons, either against a mascot or the constant threat of falling pieces. Stuffit challenges you to clear as many pieces as you can within the allotted time. Quiz is an untimed game of logic that forces you to plan your moves in advance. If you rotate a block the wrong way, you’ll clear a portion of the puzzle (instead of the entire playing field) and fail the test.

To complicate matters, the edges of your formed polygons must form right angles. It sounds easy in theory, but all boards in Puzzle Guzzle have the pieces placed on a 45-degree angle. This minor detail is the source of much confusion to early players, so unless you’ve got excellent spatial perception you might find yourself on the losing end of plenty of matches. Give it time, though, and you’ll figure things out.