Gururin

Overview

Gururin is a falling-block tile-matching puzzle game developed by Face (along with Minato GIken) and released by SNK for arcades (using Neo Geo MVS hardware) on May 25, 1994. It is one of the few games for the hardware that did not receive any home release for either Neo Geo or Neo Geo CD.

A puzzle game similar to Columns and Puyo Puyo, Gururin has players matching pieces representing common townsfolk in order to turn them into warriors, which removes them from the playfield. Each of the townfolk have different-colored outfits, and they can only be matched three-in-a-row (or more) when lined up horizontally or vertically.

The game is unique for its rotatable square playfield, 8×8 for Endless mode and 6×6 for Versus mode. Along with moving their next piece (3 people horizontally in Endless, 2 people horizontally in Versus) left and right as they fall, players can rotate the entire playfield 90-degrees ("A" button for counter-clockwise, "B" button for clockwise) before the piece falls. Rotating the playfield causes all blocks in the playfield to be affected by gravity, creating new openings and potentially causing matches.

It was later digitally re-released as part of HAMSTER's Arcade Archives series, first for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch on April 12, 2018, then for the PC on December 21, 2018.