Puzzle games come in many shapes and forms, and basic ideas are usually toyed with to fabricate spin-offs of various kinds. Other ideas seem to keep materializing over the years with a little more gloss put on to try and make a few more pounds. Shove it! The Warehouse Game is just one example of this kind of game.

Shove It! follows a burly warehouse worker, whose aspiration is to earn enough money to buy an expensive car and impress the ladies. What must this worker do? Move boxes.

The worker is placed in a special grid, and there are only a few different types of blocks: movable crates, locations for crates, and barriers. Crates can only be pushed, not pulled, and only one at a time. The object of each stage is to move each crate to one of the designates spots where crates must be placed. When this is complete, the worker progresses. There is a multitude of stages, grouped in clusters of ten apiece.

For what the game is, it can provide quite a challenge for even the most seasoned puzzler. The later stages in the game are surprisingly perplexing. What impresses me about games of this type is that every stage, no matter which number it is, looks deceivingly simple. The gamer confidently proclaims, “Oh, I can do that!” However, with a few box pushes, a box is in a corner, or a box is trapped. This rarely leads to frustration, but simply confusion. The thought that every stage is solvable is a consolation.

The hundred and sixty levels come in sets of ten in which you can take on in any order you wish. A password is given for every ten stages beaten.