Greebles Reviews

The lion's share of my time in Greebles comes not from Steam, but from the old family Macintosh in the basement of my childhood home. But I have played enough of this version to say this local multiplayer gem of the heyday of old-school Mac shareware by Peter Lewis has stepped from 1997 into the current day magnificently unchanged thanks to Grassblade Entertainment, right down to still having a Register button on the main menu (though the game is, obviously, already registered). Greebles supports up to four players (any number of which can be CPU-controlled), either via a direct IP connection or crowded around a single keyboard just like back in the day. Players maneuver around a mazelike battlefield trying to destroy all the titular greebles - generic enemies that can look like nearly anything, depending on the theme of the particular level. The main action for this is by pushing any of the level's many blocks, which slide and bounce and scoop up any greebles or players (including the one who launched them) in their path, crushing them upon hitting another obstacle. Some blocks can also be broken to provide power-ups, like shields, increased movement speed, the ability to kill enemies by touch, or fireballs. The hectic multiplayer was always this game's main strong point. The game doesn't strictly mandate that players compete or cooperate (and you can set computer-controlled players to do either), and it's easily possible for a match to swing between one or the other as people take revenge for accidentally being crushed. One hitch in this is that despite the game having 100 levels, players have finite lives. A player who runs out of lives is disqualified from the game, which in multiplayer usually means starting over or waiting for all the other players to also run out. This can be a bit awkward, but the custom game option allows you to set unlimited lives so that nobody gets left out. Greebles is quite simple, but its charming straightforwardness, hectic soundtrack, and casual weirdness are as endearing as ever. It's certainly not particularly jaw-dropping by modern gaming tech's standards, but Greebles in its day was a great widely-available little shareware timekiller for groups of friends all hunched around the same monitor, and it's great to see a neglected classic like this given such loving preservation and made conveniently playable on modern systems. I just hope that Mr. Lewis does not terribly mind that I'm paying for a registered copy over twenty years late!

Greebles is a simple but addictive little arcade-style game with a great soundtrack and unique levels. Equally fun to play alone or with friends. For the price, it's hard to pass up. Thank you Grassblade for bringing this gem back into the land of the living.