Wetrix

Wetrix is an isometric puzzle video game where the player, on a square landscape, produces mounds to hold water bubbles falling from the sky. Uppers, pieces that raise a part of the landscape that come in the shapes of rectangles, squares, and T-shapes, create walls for the lakes, while Downers do the opposite. If there is no wall in its way, water will seep off the edges and into a drain represented by a water meter; the game ends once it is full. Fireballs pop up which can evaporate water, which gives the player an amount of points depending on how much water was vaporized.

By evaporating water with fireballs, the player is also able to reduce the level of the drain in order to avoid losing. There are also hazards that ruin the player's structure, such as Mines which blast holes into the ground, Ice Cubes that freeze the water, and earthquakes that quickly turn the landscape flat once it is too high.

In the mid-1990s, brothers Ste and John Pickford, developers at Software Creations, were dissatisfied with the stillborn projects and perceived declining creativity at the studio. They left to form their own independent company, Zed Two, in an attempt to "re-learn game design from the very basics". The studio's first project was Vampire Circus, a 3D isometric hack and slash video game in the style of Gauntlet (1985). John conceived programming methods that would have taken the most advantage of the available technology, such as having hundreds of foes on the screen at a time, and animating environmental elements in a "dynamic" manner. The environmental animations would be incorporated by having almost every part of the level be inflammable, and including flowing water that reacts to the explosions.

While Ste created the backgrounds and monsters, John experimented with water animation in a "testbed" separate from Vampire Circus's code. Unlike other 3D games at the time that used a flat plane moving up and down as water, Vampire Circus was planned to have water moving as a "dynamic fluid". The testbed consisted of a flat plane grid of vectors. Drops of water would fall onto them and combine to form pools of liquid that flowed and dropped off the plane.

Wetrix received generally positive reviews, including one in Famitsu, which had the highest rating for a Western-developed product in years. A common highlight was its unique puzzle game concept, which Nintendo Power described as a mixture of Tetris and Populous (1989). Due to the fact that it involves falling pieces, Wetrix was heavily compared to not only Tetris entries, but the Nintendo 64 titles Tetrisphere and Bust-A-Move 2 (1998). Some found its spin on Tetris elements refreshing, given the amount of other titles that copied Tetris mechanics without doing anything innovative. IGN noted that with previous puzzle video games, "the further developers got from Tetris, the more annoyed people got", making Wetrix's success as both an original and enjoyable puzzle game profound.

The high difficulty and steep learning curve generally garnered a mixed response. Critics suggested that while it would appeal to hardcore puzzle game veterans, it may not be suited for all players, especially first-timers. Reviewers from Edge and N64 Magazine claimed an individual's first playthrough can end in seconds. The challenge was attributed to the controls, fast object dropping, and the randomization of what falls.

Wetrix's critical and commercial success inspired Imagineer to commission Zed Two to develop a sequel, Aqua Aqua (2000), which was a launch title for the PlayStation 2. The gameplay remained largely unaltered, new features including a Story Mode with bosses and cute-looking characters that Imagineer commanded Zed Two to add to make the product more appealing to Japanese audiences. Despite a positive critical reception and decent sales, there have been no further Wetrix titles.