The world of Piyotama is instantly and completely endearing. Sometimes it's all about cuteness overload, as my master cuteness reference site proclaims, and Piyotama does a great job of setting the cutest stage possible. I mean, baby chickens are already adorable, but throw in brightly colored eggs, and we're talking major US holiday here! The default setting for play is sunny, green, and generally pastoral, but you can reskin Piyotama to showcase more beachy, pastel colors. The orientation of the game-screen would have made this a candidate for sideways play on the PSP, as much as we hate to admit that. Rarely used, we know, but there's a definite case to be made here because of the vertical, drop-down-piece puzzle elements of Piyotama. If there were a "cute overload" category for audio, we'd nominate Piyotama as well, based on some rousing J-Pop that asserts itself even as the first splash screen is loading. A recurring theme with Piyotama comes into effect here though, because there's no depth or variation. What you see and hear is what you get throughout the game, rather than various design themes or new additions to the soundtrack. We'd love to see a version of Piyotama that takes advantage of additional content, because what's here can only keep your attention for a brief span. Where the curb-appeal falls off, perhaps the gameplay will be enough to sustain your interest. It didn't work exactly like that for us, but as they say in the investment and pharmaceutical trades: "Your results may vary."

After Tetris, the world of puzzle gaming could never really be the same. It's not like we haven't seen many, many new variations on the theme, but if you dig deep enough into most casual games on the market today, you'll find some block-dropping, shape-matching aesthetic at work. Piyotama recalls a game that was released as part of Nintendo's ART STYLE series, titled AQUIA. These games are fairly derivative, when we look at the Tetris model. Objects drop from above, have to be matched with other objects, and your job is to clear the screen of objects... It's tried and true, which we suspect always makes game executives happy. The impact on gamers varies from person to person, but if you're the type that really enjoys kicking back to play something that doesn't tax your intellect or your reflexes too terribly much, Piyotama may deserve a spot on your download wish list.

There are only two closely-related modes in Piyotama, Coop and Free Range. The Coop Mode represents a sort of campaign-style of play, but there's really no story progression beyond leveling up and increasing difficulty. These Coop sessions are timed, so it's your job to match as many colored eggs falling from the sky as possible, before the countdown ends. Free Range is almost identical to Coop, but lacks a timer. This is fine for times when you don't want to worry about the pressure of a score, and just want to experience that sense of casual-gaming bliss. The reason eggs are dropping from the sky is because the so-called "Piyomama" hen has lost a clutch of soon-to-be chicks that need rounding up. As you connect eggs of the same color, you hatch the chicks and add to your score. Piyotama is a color- and sequence-matching game where you can string together long lines of eggs in horizontal or diagonal lines. Score is about the only reason you'll keep playing, to compare yourself against others on the leaderboard, since there's no multiplayer features available. It's a fun diversion for the first hour, and beyond that we found few reasons to keep coming back to the world of Piyotama.

There's a randomness at work that makes it hard to define difficulty in games like this, but Piyotama uses the classic devices like increased speed and more complex distribution of colors, to keep dialing up the challenge. The hardest thing you'll find is moving colors around vertically, since this requires you to actually slide them sideways out of the "chute" they fall into, and then press buttons to switch their sequence. Moving three eggs at a time like this makes for slow progress, and you'll learn to start looking ahead for matches. Every person will likely play a bit differently, favoring certain colors or match types, but to really master Piyotama, you'll need to grapple with chains and special eggs. The chains happen when you string multiple colors in multiple lines together, which isn't as hard as it sounds because of some delay between the time you match and hatch. You can force the hatches to happen, but there are a number of seconds you'll have after the initial match to pull in more eggs and build up a chain. Complicating this are some special eggs that will fall, forcing you to match specific color sequences. The payoff with these eggs is that when they are positioned correctly, you can pull off huge single-color hatching sequences, but this takes practice and skill. So, Piyotama operates nicely as a slow-paced casual title in its Free Range Mode, but there are ways for dedicated puzzle fans to master the game mechanics and blow up the leaderboards. It's a limited ecosystem, but at least there's something for everyone here.

As we mentioned earlier, there's at least one title that we were reminded of immediately after booting up Piyotama, for the Nintendo DSi. As much as we'd like to say that touchscreen would be an advantage for games like this, they work remarkably well using traditional controls. The amazing thing to us was how many buttons on the PSP are actually utilized while playing Piyotama. It boils down to about three actions, but you'll spend a bit of time figuring out how it all works. The analog buttons move your scrubber up and down the playing field, and pushing to one side or another will nudge three eggs out of the pile. This can result in some matches, but the purpose is to allow rearrangements of eggs. You can also tap one of two buttons while the eggs are out, to shift their sequence. This allows you to build quick horizontal matches, or to set up diagonal matches. The diagonals are much harder to visualize, but you do get a feel for it after a while. Once you trigger a match, you'll see the eggs light up, which gives you time to string on more matches, build chains, or tap the shoulder button to manually hatch the highlighted eggs. Manually hatching is a bit like bumping a pinball table; you can use it to help you, but it's important to know when and how to pull it off.

Our read on Piyotama is that it fits nicely within the stable of lightweight, download games for Sony's portable platform. It isn't going to rock your world, but it will deliver the goods on a limited basis. We struggle with any game that offers such limited depth, but we also realize that many gamers enjoy just kicking back and relaxing while they play. Piyotama is the polar opposite of challenging, varied gameplay, but it can entertain you for small blocks of time. Think of it as a loading-screen for the game of your life, in those dull moments when you're waiting for something else to happen. If you come to Piyotama with the right expectations, you can have a good time, counting chicks before they hatch. In this world, that's okay...