Penguin Land is a cute and devilish platform puzzle game developed and published by Sega – exclusively for the Sega Master System – in 1987. The original Japanese title of the game is “Doki Doki Penguin Land Uchū Daibōken“.

I say “devilish” because Penguin Land is a lot more difficult than it at first appears. It took me a while to tune in to the game’s requirements and my first games quickly ended in failure. It requires practise, and a good memory, so you don’t repeat the mistakes of previous attempts.

The aim of the game is to push/steer/drop an egg to the bottom of each screen, without breaking it, within the time limit. The penguin can dig and remove blue blocks below and in front of it that are free from obstruction, and a flashing line shows you how far the egg can fall without breaking. Pushing the egg requires its path to be unobstructed and climbing over it can only be done when it can roll left or right freely. Landing on the egg while it’s confined will cause it to break, so you have to be careful.

Some drop chutes allow only the egg to pass through them and others allow only the penguin to pass (indicated by the appropriate icon); roaming polar bears can kill the penguin if they touch it, but these can be eradicated by squashing them with movable blocks; solid yellow blocks cannot be destroyed or moved; cracked blocks will break if the egg falls onto them from height, and you get a points bonus depending on how much time you have remaining at the end.

Penguin Land also has a level editor with which you can use to make your own levels – and save them onto the cartridge – which was unusual for Master System games at the time.

If you like challenging puzzle games then you should play Penguin Land. It’s a fun brain-teaser, but probably won’t last long if you prefer your puzzle games to be easy. You can always refer to YouTube if you need help figuring out what to do.

More: Penguin Land on Wikipedia