Smash ’em up, smash ’em up, buddy gonna shut you down

Awesome name, awesome (yet familiar) concept: Trucks and Skulls is a physics puzzler, monster truck rally–style. Direct your monster trucks into skull fortifications, smashing them into little bits to gain big-time scoring. Trucks travel the “screamstrip ramp” when you drag the green wheel back with your finger or mouse. The distance back and angle of the wheel determine your truck’s speed and trajectory. Then you let go, and your trucks smash into skull forts and defenses, destroying everything in sight.

You’ll encounter six types of trucks, and each is uniquely drawn and has its own sound bite for easy identification. Different truck types also perform different stunts. When it’s time to do a stunt, just click your truck in midair and let ’er go. Some trucks will speed up, while others will explode or drop bombs.

“Ready to exploooooode!”

Each level shows a list of the trucks available to you to bust skull forts. You can retry any level, but Trucks and Skulls has a unique feature we haven’t found in other games of this Angry Birds–ish type—the game will unlock the next level if you get stuck on a level for too long. Nice. Even the audio fires on all cylinders with growling and grunting trucks, screeching skulls, explosions, and hardcore rock music from monster-truck rallies. Its 150 levels of truck-busting fun are spread over five locations, such as Hell’s Highway and Demon Town. Levels range from skulls that take two or more impacts to destroy, to lava and indestructible fortifications, to dynamite that can explode everything. Scoring covers what you destroyed, bonuses from stunts, and whether you have trucks left over. Unfortunately, there’s no online leaderboard to share scores. And one section of the game lets you review levels shared by friends. However, neither the game nor the developer’s site details how to share these levels or where to find them.

The bottom line. Even with an industry saturated with physics puzzlers, Trucks and Skulls rises above with its unique visual concept, great sound, and fun puzzles to solve. Add to that a developer that regularly updates with new content, and this game is ready to explode.