Vid Grid

Overview

Vid Grid is a tile-puzzle game developed and published by Jasmine Multimedia for the PC (supporting early Windows versions) in 1995. It was also ported by High Voltage to the Jaguar CD (as a pack-in title, alongside a port of Blue Lightning) on September 21, 1995.

The game includes a total of 10 music videos of different rock genres (including grunge rock from Soundgarden and Nirvana, hard rock from Van Halen and Aerosmith, and heavy metal from Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica). During each puzzle, the video itself is chopped up into a grid and each piece is scrambled. As the video plays, players must reassemble the pieces to its original form. As players progress through the game, each puzzle gets progressively tougher to solve (including larger amounts of pieces, different puzzle requirements, and flipped videos).

The game received two spin-off titles: Country Vid Grid (for country music videos) and Kid Vid Grid (for cartoons).

Gameplay

To clear the game, players have to go through all unlocked videos consecutively 5 times (for a total of 47 puzzles), with each puzzle getting progressively tougher to solve. Each puzzle requires players to unscramble the puzzle before the video ends.

In the PC version, the game is controlled with the mouse. The Swap button is set to left-click and the Flip button is set to right-click.

Puzzle Size

• Normal - Standard scrambled puzzle. In the PC version, they are in either 4 pieces (in a 2x2 grid), 6 pieces (in a 3x2 grid), 8 pieces (in a 4x2 grid), 9 pieces (in a 3x3 grid), 10 pieces (in a 5x2 grid), 12 pieces (in a 4x3 grid), 15 pieces (in a 5x3 grid), 16 pieces (in a 4x4 grid), 18 pieces (in a 6x3 grid), 20 pieces (in a 5x4 grid), 24 pieces (in a 6x4 grid), 25 pieces (in a 5x5 grid), or an unusual "Spaghetti" option (10 pieces in a 1x10 grid). In the Jaguar CD version, they are in either 9 pieces (in a 3x3 grid), 16 pieces (in a 4x4 grid), 25 pieces (in a 5x5 grid), or 36 pieces (in a 6x6 grid).

• Progressive - Same as Normal, only players have to solve the puzzle multiple times in the time allotted, with each re-scramble increasing the amount of pieces.

Puzzle Movement

• Drag and Drop - Pieces can be swapped with any other piece by holding down the Swap button.

• Perfection - Same as Drag and Drop, except that the puzzle is re-scrambled if the player sets a piece into an incorrect position.

• Slider - One of the pieces is empty, and pieces can only be swapped (by tapping the Swap button) to an adjacent empty piece.

Video Orientation

• Normal

• Flipped - Some pieces are flipped in a certain orientation, requiring players to flip the pieces back to normal using the Flip button. In the PC version, they are flipped vertically. In the Jaguar CD version, they are flipped horizontally.

• Up/Down - The entire video is flipped vertically and cannot be flipped back.

Videos

The game includes 10 music videos, one of which (Smells Like Teen Spirit) is hidden until players reach Level 4.

In the PC version, all videos are in 320x240 and run in 15 frames-per-second. They use the Microsoft Video for Windows framework and are compressed with the Cinepak codec.

• Aerosmith - Cryin'
• Guns N' Roses - November Rain
• Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced?
• Metallica - Enter Sandman
• Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
• Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears
• Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - Give It Away
• Soundgarden - Spoonman
• Van Halen - Right Now