Berusky

About the game

Berusky (Czech for "ladybugs") is a puzzle game in the tradition of Sokoban. Each level is a walled maze seen from above, with up to five ladybugs of different colours in it. To leave, you have to collect five keys and then walk any ladybug into the exit, which only opens once the fifth key is taken. Getting there means clearing a path: pushing boxes out of the way, destroying them, breaking stones and opening doors, usually in a very particular order.

The objects each follow simple rules. Heavy boxes can be pushed one at a time, light boxes even two in a row. Pushing an explosive into a box blows both of them up. A pickax lets a ladybug break one stone. Coloured keys can only be picked up by the ladybug of the same colour, and they open the door of that colour. Coloured gateways let only the matching ladybug through, and no box fits through them. One-pass doors close for good behind whoever crosses them. Everything else is plain wall.

The game has 120 levels in five sets: Training, Easy, Intermediate, Advanced and Impossible, plus a set of 32 levels sent in by players. Every level has a short five-letter name, a hint written by the designers and a step counter that shows how many moves you have made.

Berusky was made by AnakreoN, a small Czech group: Martin Stránský wrote the code, Luboš Doležal designed the rules and the levels, and Jan Halfar and Václav Hlobil drew the graphics. The game goes back to the late 1990s, and in 2007 the team released it as free software under the GNU GPL.

Playing it here

This is Berusky 1.7.2, the latest release, compiled for the browser from the project's source code. The download is about 11 MB, and the game opens in its high resolution mode, scaled to fit the player. Your profile and the levels you have solved are kept in this browser; clearing this site's data deletes them. The game has no sound or music: the original code already comes with them turned off. The level editor, which runs as a separate program, is not included. A keyboard is needed to play.

Controls

Getting started

Create a profile. "Change profile" in the main menu lets you type a name. Each profile keeps its own progress in every level set, so several people can share the same browser.

Start with Training. "Play" asks for a level set and then shows a map of its levels joined by pipes. Training introduces the objects a few at a time, and its hints explain what each one does. A new level unlocks every time you finish the one before it, and "Select last" jumps to the furthest one you have reached.

Read the hint. F1 during a level, or "Level hint" on the map, shows a few lines from the designers. In the early levels they explain the rules; later on they are more about the idea behind the puzzle.

Tips

Count the keys first. Before moving, find all the keys and work out which ladybug can reach each one. A key behind a coloured gateway can only be fetched by the ladybug of that colour, and a coloured door waits for that same ladybug to bring its coloured key.

Do not waste explosives. Every explosive destroys exactly one box, and a box pushed against a wall can never be pulled back. If a level has as many explosives as boxes in the way, each one is probably meant for a specific box.

Store the position before a risky move. F2 remembers the whole level as it is and F3 puts it back, so you can try a sequence of pushes and undo it if it goes wrong. The stored position is only kept while you play that level.

Use the other ladybugs as tools. Ladybugs block each other like walls, and a ladybug can stand still while another one works. In the later levels, the solution often depends on parking one ladybug in the right place.