Puzzle Frenzy is a challenging puzzle game where you must match similar blocks in sets of three or more in order to remove them from the playing field, and the goal is to eliminate all the blocks from each level. The player controls a rectangular cursor that surrounds two blocks at once and can swap their positions in order to align similar blocks and make a set. You can only swap two blocks that are above or below one another since the rectangular cursor cannot change direction and select two side-by-side blocks. When a set of blocks is removed, any that still exist to the right will fall into the newly opened spaces. There are two main modes of play in Puzzle Frenzy: Endless mode and Puzzle mode.

In Endless mode, columns of randomly-placed blocks will slowly scroll onto the screen from the left side, and you must swap blocks quickly in order to remove them. You must try to keep playing as long as possible to build up points, and if the blocks stack up to the right side of the screen, then there will be a Gameover. The high score of the game will be stored, and you will constantly want to keep playing in order to beat your high score.

In Puzzle mode, there are 60 levels with predetermined arrangements of blocks that you must swap and match, to eliminate them from the playing field. The challenging part about this mode of play is that you have a limited number of moves to remove all the blocks, and the way they are removed is very specific. You must use strategy when choosing which blocks to swap because some sets depend on falling when others are removed, in order to be eliminated themselves. The levels increase in difficulty as you go higher, and will require much experimentation of moves and foresight in how the blocks will fall. Each level has a password that you will gain upon starting the level, so you can come back to it any time by choosing to enter a password from the title screen.

ARROW KEYS:

The Up, Down, Left, and Right arrow keys will control the movement of the rectangular cursor and shift it in the corresponding directions in order to select a different pair of blocks. The Left and Right keys will also change which word is being selected in the text menus throughout the game.

2ND KEY:

The 2nd key is used to swap the blocks that are currently being selected by the rectangular cursor.

ALPHA KEY:

In Endless mode, holding the Alpha key will speed up the scrolling of the blocks onto the screen. Releasing this key will resume the normal speed of the scrolling. In Puzzle mode, the Alpha key has no function.

MODE KEY:

The Mode key is used during Endless mode to Pause the current game and show the current score and high score. Pressing 2nd/Enter will resume the game.

CLEAR KEY:

The Clear key is used to exit the current game that is in progress, and can be used to quit out of Puzzle Frenzy back to the title screen and games list. Pressing this key during the gameplay will bring up a message prompt with text menus, and these are explained below.

DEL KEY:

The Delete key will quit PuzzPack to the TI-OS homescreen, and the current state of Endless or Puzzle mode will not be saved, requiring you to start a new game the next time you play.

In various parts of the game, message prompts are displayed to the user that give certain information and text menus for the user to make selections at. When starting a game in Puzzle mode, a prompt will come up that asks if you want to enter a Password. Choosing "Yes" here will start the password-entry sequence, and "No" will go to level 1 without entering a password. At the start of every level in Puzzle mode, a message comes up that shows the user the level number, the number of moves allowed, and the password of that level.

If the user presses Clear in Endless mode, a prompt comes up asking "Are You Sure?", which is a confirmation if the user wants to quit the current game. Choosing "No" will resume the game, and "Yes" will exit to the title screen. If the user presses Clear in Puzzle mode, a prompt comes up that displays the current level and number of moves left, as well a text menu of selections. Choosing "Cont" will resume the current Puzzle level that you have worked on, "Again" will restart the level, and "Quit" will exit to the title screen.

From the second item of the main menu in Puzzle Frenzy, you can enter a password for a level that you've already solved up to. Knowing the password for later levels in the game will allow you to skip those you have already beaten before. A password consists of 3 characters, each having the possibility of being A-Z, a-z, or 0-9. You will select one character at a time, and cannot go back to a previous character of the 3 once you have selected one. Press the Up and Down keys to change the current character. Up will move to the next one, ascending through the uppercase alphabet, then the lowercase alphabet, then numbers, and back to uppercase. The Down key will change to the previous character in the opposite direction as Up. Press the Enter or 2nd key to select the character you are currently showing, and when 3 characters are chosen, the password will be processed. If it matches the passwords for any of the 60 levels, you will be started on that level, else you will start at level 1.