Over a year after its initial launch, the Xbox Live Indie Marketplace seems to have finally produced some consistently high quality offerings. The likes of the impressively named I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!! and Mithra: The Calling Episode One have shown us that games don’t need to have flashy graphics or large budgets to be entertaining and worth our time. One other thing that the Indie marketplace has highlighted is the utter madness that goes through some Indie designers’ heads in order to come up with a unique idea. The idea of a physics based puzzle game centred around Gerbils didn’t seem like the most obvious of choices for a game but Gerbil Physics is fantastic fun even if the concept does sound absurd.

Your goal is simple. There’s a line near the bottom of the screen and a number of cuddly gerbils piled up above the line, you have to get them below the line within a set number of turns. Your only methods to do this are through the use of bombs, ropes and disintegration. Considering the amount of explosives used in this game, it’s good to see that the gerbils are somehow never hurt throughout each level, despite frequently being propelled across the screen by various explosions.

Early levels are quite simple to complete as frequently the gerbils are piled up on top of each other with a simple matter of some appropriately placed bombs easily clearing them. However as time goes on completing levels becomes a more involved process. Sometimes the use of a rope is needed in a Jenga style manner to gradually tweak a gerbil in a certain direction, while being careful so as not to break the rope. Other times more than one bomb at a time needs to be placed swiftly so that a chain reaction effect occurs ensuring the gerbils move where you want them to move. This is particularly vital when dealing with iron gerbil blocks which are much heavier and need more explosive force to shift them. Red gerbils are the most annoying type as they can’t be touched without losing the level. A few levels involved propelling typical gerbils over the red gerbil towers making precise movements vital to success.

There’s a nice variety to Gerbil Physics’ levels with none of them feeling too samey despite the general concept being identical. Some levels involved clearing giant gerbils while others were more Jenga-esque in nature, the variety offered ensured that things never became too stale. I was quite disappointed to see that it only took a matter of a couple of hours for me to clear the 24 levels on offer though.

Gerbil Physics was a lot of fun to play. It’s very bright and charming with an appropriately pitched musical score. It’s the sort of game that family gamers can play around their children without any fear of inappropriateness. It might be rather short to complete with only 24 levels on offer but at a bargain price of 80 points, there really is no excuse not to give Gerbil Physics a shot.

VideogameUK verdict: 8/10

You can download the demo, and purchase the full game, at Xbox.com.