Tetris meets Jenga in this wobbly physics puzzler

What do you get when you mix Tetris, Jenga, and a dash of sorcery? 99 Bricks Wizard Academy.

Fragile fun with physics

The basic idea of 99 Bricks Wizard Academy is to build a tower as high as you can. You do this by maneuvering the falling block shapes to form a solid structure. If a shape falls off you lose a life. Once you’ve lost three lives the game stops and your tower is measured.

It sounds easy, but towers in 99 Bricks Wizard Academy get decidedly wobbly as they grow, and you need to be very shrewd in placing your blocks to avoid a total collapse. There are moments too where naughty wizards pop up and cast spells designed to make your life even more difficult, such as attacking bricks or turning bricks huge.

Interest in the game is kept alive by challenges, leveling, and a shop where you can purchase upgrades, outfits, and spells. Casting spells in 99 Bricks Wizard Academy allows you to do stuff like turning groups of blocks solid, making gold blocks that dish out more coins, and spawning tower pieces in the air.

There are a ton of in-app purchases in the game, but the good thing about 99 Bricks Wizard Academy is that they aren’t essential to progress – although they will help!

Brick and mix

The touch controls in 99 Bricks: Wizard Academy are very comfortable, especially if you’re used to Tetris. Bricks fall from the top and you tap them to rotate them. You can swipe down to make them fall faster.

There’s a guide that shows you the landing width of your brick based on its position as it falls. It doesn’t show you a preview of the landing space of the shape though, which would help ease the frustration of 99 Bricks Wizard Academy, which gets infuriatingly difficult at times.

Full of cheer

Though hardly jaw-dropping, the graphics in 99 Bricks Wizard Academy are colorful and cheery. The plinky, up-tempo soundtrack fits nicely with the upbeat feel of the game, and doesn’t get as irritating as the incessant looped music in many mobile puzzle games.

Scales new heights

99 Bricks Wizard Academy is a highly enjoyable physics game that brings a new dimension to the tired falling bricks genre. However, if you’re not up for a challenge you might get frustrated how difficult it is to keep your tower from tumbling.