Poitto!
Poitto! is an extremely rare arcade machine (the Killer List of Video Games knows of only two instances in the
hand of collectors, and both are circuit boards only) which was
clearly inspired by Columns, yet there
are some significant differences in gameplay.
Just like in Columns, squares (here called bottles, and graphically represented as such) will vanish if there are three of the same color in a row, either horizontally or vertically, diagonals don't count. But unlike Columns, the bottles can fall in units of three or four.
You can play it either in monster mode or in player vs. player mode, where one of these players can be taken over by the computer. In monster mode, the right-hand well will be taken up by the graphic of a monster on a platform. There is an extra type of bottle, the monster bottle, and if you clear a row of these, the platform will be pushed up a little, until the monster is crushed against the top.
In player vs. player mode, some of your opponent's bottles will get a timer as soon as you clear a row, getting a cute clock graphic imposed on them. These timer bottles cannot be cleared until the timer has expired. Of course, just as in any Tetris clone, the game is over as soon as the bottles pile up to the top.
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