page_title: Puzzlejuice
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Puzzlejuice / Development
caption_attribution_description: English: Puzzlejuice creators Greg Wohlwend (left) and Asher Vollmer (right) at the 2012 PAX 10 showcase
context_page_description: Puzzlejuice is a 2012 indie puzzle video game for iOS produced and developed by video game company Sirvo. The game is a combination of Tetris, tile-matching, and Boggle: players rearrange falling tetromino blocks into rows of similar colors, which turn into letters that are cleared from the board by forming words. The fast-paced game also includes challenges and power-ups. The development team consisted of three people; programmer Asher Vollmer initially developed the game alone, before reaching out to artist Greg Wohlwend for advice on the aesthetics. Composer Jimmy Hinson produced the game's music.
  The game was released January 19, 2012 to what video game review score aggregator Metacritic called "generally favorable" reviews. Multiple reviewers mentioned the difficulty involved in juggling the three game components simultaneously. The game was released on Android through publisher GameClub on June 19, 2020.
context_section_description: Puzzlejuice was built by a group called Collaboratory and later renamed Sirvo. The three-person team consisted of programmer Asher Vollmer, artist Greg Wohlwend, and composer Jimmy Hinson. The game began as Vollmer's idea. He later reached out to Wohlwend for aesthetic advice, which resulted in a 365-message chain email and the final product. Wohlwend and Vollmer did not speak a word to each other—or use a medium outside of Gmail and Twitter—throughout the entire development process. The title was inspired by what Vollmer described as the "EXTREME" American culture of the 1990s, exemplified by the board game Crossfire and juice-filled Gushers fruit snacks. A similar game, Spelltower, was released during Puzzlejuice's development, but Vollmer and Wohlwend ultimately considered their game sufficiently different to proceed. Puzzlejuice was selected for the PAX 10, a spotlighted group of indie games, in July 2012. The game was released as a universal app for iPhone and iPad on January 19, 2012. Vollmer expressed an interest in bringing the game to Steam Greenlight in August 2012.
caption: Wohlwend and Vollmer displaying the game at PAX 2012
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