Rotoplex is a puzzle game where the play area is made up of small coloured tiles in groups of four. To complete a level each coloured tile must touch a tile of the the same colour in the adjacent group. To achieve this configuration groups of tiles can be rotated into four positions. Groups of four can also be swapped with other groups of four.

As might be expected the first level is easy enough to complete but by the third level it's a much more complex undertaking. The programmer, John Dale, hints that this complexity was probably why the game was unreleased. The simplest puzzle games, like Tetris, are usually the most successful.

Players do indeed have an initial complexity barrier to overcome, but once the controls are grasped (see below) and the aim of the game understood, it becomes quite addictive. It can be difficult and frustrating too, when the shape matching plan being put into action fails to produce a level winning result.

The joystick controls are:

Up, down, left right = move reticle
Hold fire + left = rotate group of tiles anticlockwise
Hold fire + right = rotate group of tiles clockwise
Hold fire + up = select tile for swapping
Hold fire + down = cancel current selection
Hold fire + up (at different location than selection) = swap current tile with selected