Avish

Sometime in the nineties, I'd stand in front of shop shelves wondering where games with names nobody knew came from. Avish from 1993 is exactly that kind of game — released in Israel by the local company BUG Multisystem Ltd., originally in Hebrew, and it reached Central Europe, if at all, only through thin channels.

Avish is a logic platformer that moves somewhere on the edge of genres. The goal is to get the player or game elements to the objective — it resembles Lemmings in the sense that you think ahead and react to what the screen has in store. The setting is unassuming, puzzles are what hold the whole thing together.

The controls and mechanics fit the standards of the time — keyboard, straightforward inputs, no excessive interface complexity. What the game does demand from you, though, is patience and willingness to try and repeat. Each screen is essentially a small problem to solve. This approach either clicks or it doesn't — it depends on whether you enjoy logic games where you fail through planning, not reflexes.

What really strikes you about Avish is the context of its creation. The Israeli game industry wasn't something you'd read about in magazines in 1993 — and yet here stands a game that built itself a decent reputation in its local market simply by being homegrown. A Hebrew original, a local publisher, a product for its own audience. That alone is a curiosity worth attention. Whether the game itself keeps pace with contemporary European competition in the genre is a question — but it's at least worth exploring.

Today it will appeal mainly to those who have a soft spot for logic games from the first half of the nineties and aren't afraid of smaller, less explored titles. You can play it in a browser through an emulator without installation, which is ideal for these kinds of curiosities — you try it, you understand it, and if it grabs you, you'll spend an hour or two the way afternoons were spent at the monitor back in 1993.