Factor Software has recently updated its Germs... game, developed by Mike Weyandt. Currently at version 1.3.1, Germs is a color-matching puzzle game that has Mac owners picking up germ sprites from a "culture dish" to arrange them on the gameboard by color and then make them disappear. The latest version fixes a number of bugs (shouldn't bugs get rid of germs first?) but also includes an update to the help feature. A demo is available right here for download.

The game combines quick thinking with even quicker reflexes as players manipulate scads of colorful, killer pathogens in order to neutralize a biological threat and save humanity - this is how Factor Software describes its puzzle title. As noted above, gameplay is quite simple, with players only having to "pick pieces up and place them on the gameboard," a model also used in several games such as MacPipes. You pick up germ sprites from a "culture dish" and arrange them on the gameboard in patterns of the same color to make them disappear. That's pretty much it.

Germs sports gorgeous artwork in thousands of colors, six differently animated germs (some cute, some nasty, all dangerous!), 35 different levels of pulse-pounding puzzle action, Beginner and Expert skill levels, a fully-interactive tutorial to teach you the ropes, 2 original electronic music tracks, multi-channel stereo sound effects and online scores. The colorful, but infected, puzzle game even allows you to play your favorite MP3s as background music.

Requirements call for PowerPC or Intel-based Macs (see note), Mac OS 9.0 or later; built for Mac OS X, QuickTime 5.0 or later. For Mac OS 9.x only, you need 16 MBytes free memory and CarbonLib 1.5 or later. However, Mac OS X 10.2 or later is recommended.

The demo version of Factor Software's Germs offers not one, not two, but a total of five levels from the full game.