Soko-Ban

This is level 04. Actually, all levels from 02 up are pretty much impossible to finish!

Link to this screenshot:

Soko-Ban is a puzzle game where the player pushes boxes around in a warehouse maze, and tries to put them in predetermined areas. There have been many versions of this game, but this page mainly covers the 1988 IBM PC version by Khaled Bentebal (Spectrum Holobyte).

Packing box

'Soko' is the Japanese word for warehouse and Soko-Ban means warehouseman or storeman. A storeman is left in charge of a warehouse, which consists of a number of rooms or chambers connected by doorways and corridors. Inside these rooms various packing cases have been left lying around and the storeman has been told that he must get them all into one particular chamber.

CGA and EGA comparison

The EGA version of Soko-Ban uses exactly the same graphics as the CGA version, but with a less painfull colour palette. A bit of a shame though, as 12 colours are unused now.

Soko-Ban title screen in CGA

Soko-Ban title screen in EGA

The warehouse entrance hall in CGA

The warehouse entrance hall in EGA

The 1988 PC version

This puzzle game is incredibly difficult and starting from level 2 and up, the mazes are pretty much impossible to finish. The 1988 CGA version has a few cool features, where the storeman begins outside of the building, and then takes the elevator to one of the 50 floors (levels) in the warehouse. There doesn't seem to be any real ending, at least not when you finish level 50. The only reward you get is some blinking boxes, which looks pretty cool!

I've also included a few screenshots of the 1994 version. You'd think this new game would look much better with it's high res VGA graphics than the CGA version, but you'd be wrong. The main guy is replaced with a sphere, and the levels aren't very fun to play at all. It's actually very difficult to see what are boxes and what are walls.