downWorld: Puzzle Battles Meets MMO

No, that title was not a typo I was too lazy to correct, that’s how it really is. A little tucked away game in the corners of the world wide web my associate Aron bought to my attention so I thought why not give it a spin.

downWorld is an MMOPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Puzzle Game henceforth) merging together puzzle games and RPG elements. Before I go further I must stress that this game is currently in beta, but with what I have ran into so far I am compelled to write a review. Well, let’s get started.

Gameplay: Like I said it’s a Puzzle game with RPG elements. You can equip different gear to increase the damage you deal and reduce the damage you take from each color bubble. The gear and levels will also increase your HP. If you have played any puzzle games before of this caliber then there is nothing I can say about the basics (and in the time you spent reading this if you didn’t know how to play this kind of puzzle game you could have learned how to). The things to know is that the white crystals generate Flow (turns out this Flow is used in another game they run called ourWorld which predates this game). Think of Flow as Mana. Also, these bubbles do no damage, so you either get Flow or inflect pain. Flow’s used to preform special moves…yes this game has special moves which run the gambit from damage to protection. If you want to use them, just click on their symbols.

The black box pieces will strike out an entire column. The damage you deal with those depends on how many and what kind of bubbles you popped (think multi-elemental damage). If you manage to eliminate four or more of the same color bubble (connected to one another in a straight line) you get an extra turn (this counts those black boxes and Flow crystals).

Also, there is a multiplayer. You and some people can gang up on a creature, but beware of drop in’s. If you’re in the middle of a puzzle and have an opponent on the ropes all someone has to do is run into the monster too and its HP goes up. There is a stealth mode to prevent this from happening BUT I shouldn’t have to do this. Get on fixing it before the full launch, please!

Also, the enemies when they lose (unless they remove this once the Beta ends) explode into a bloody mess. I didn’t know puzzles could make you burst. When you lose, you become a skeleton. Lame.

Artwork: Usually, I don’t go near this segment, but since the art styles of ourWorld and downWorld were rather…unique I feel I have to touch on it. It’s horrible. Aron and I couldn’t bare to look at the games characters any longer than we had to. I was hoping that what I saw was just a place holder until the Beta ended…looking at ourWorld, I was sadly let down. To ourWorld’s credit the animation is more fluent than in downWorld…but this is not my chief complaint. The thing that bothered me the most was…

The In-Game Advertising: This…this would be the thing that made me want to eat the souls of the people who made this game. Each time you move to a new location you have to sit through this video promoting something…EVERY TIME YOU CHANGE LOCATIONS! They do this to try to encourage you to pay for Elite status where you get all kinds of perks (I wouldn’t know what they are or if they’re worth it, no money to see).

I know they need to make money but the way they “ask me” to give money for a month or three of no ads feels less like asking and more like bulling me into making the purchase. Imagine in real life going from point A to point B and between each point you’re slammed with an advertisement which you were FORCED to see through to the end, Could you imagine if you REALLY need to use the bathroom but this douche bag refuses to move till you hear his nonsense that you have no interest in? Me neither. They need to make the ads less intrusive. What’s wrong with having the ads appear every three map moves?

Judgment: I liked the idea of a combat puzzle game, but the horrible graphics and even more horrible ads getting in the way they pretty much guaranteed that I will not recommend this game to ANYONE! Who knows, they might shape up. I plan to post this in their forums and watch the fireworks. I feel like I gave this game far more attention than it deserved. As always I encourage you to try the game for yourself if you desire. If you enjoy it, that’s fine, good for you.

And now, for the obligatory YouTube video..

Sea Treasure Match

Ahoy there MATES!

Captain Kawaiido here, back from sailing the high seas in search of treasure on the high sea- OW! Oh GOD…my head. It hurts so badly. And it’s not from the rum I pounded back seventeen times because the alcohol content wasn’t nearly enough to make anyone this way. Let me get a seat…there.

Okay today’s game happens to be a puzzle game. One of those Bejeweled knock offs as it were. Okay, its not a complete Bejeweled knock off, it’s got its own elements- OW! So of a…anyway, lets get to it before I take a gun to my- SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS MAKE IT STOP! Sorry, sorry, onto the game

Game Play: The objective of the game (like others of its kind) is to clear away a certain number of jewels in order to advance to the next level. In this case, replace jewels with sectors. They’ll be indicated by yellow boarders. Jewels might switch places but the boarder will always remain where it is. You eliminate these boarders by matching jewels by at least 3’s to clear them, and off to the next level.

To aide you’ll be getting items such as bombs, dynamite, hour glasses and lightning bolts for clearing certain amounts of jewels in one swoop. The bombs if matched with a jewel of the same color eliminates jewels in a 3-by-3 area- OH GOD, WHY WON’T THE POUNDING STOP!? Sorry about that. AS I WAS SAYING, dynamite does the same thing with the same trigger as the bombs except in a cross pattern and wider range. Lightning- KILL ME, SOMEONE KIILLLL MEEEE!! Again sorry about that, back on task. Lightning has the same trigger, but it takes out 7 random jewels and finally Hourglasses (same trigger as the others) give you an extra minute to the clock.

As an added hindrance, you’ll run into these locked jewels further on. They can’t be moved, but can be eliminated if matched or blown up. They will get in your way by having somewhere under them more boarders that must be cleared away. If you run out of any possible matching jewels the game will help by reshuffling jewels. The only true foe here is the timer.

Interface: What interface? It’s just point and click! Though I do like that if you click outside of the game it pauses for you. That’s very nice of the game.

Final Judgment: The game is fairly challenging and could keep you busy for at least an hour. One thing I should advise. The games music (and only song) is sleep educing. Just something about it just makes you want to curl up and snooze, which in turn could also educe boredom. If you’re going to play it either quiet the music or turn it up and play it when you’re having issues sleeping.

Now excuse me. I need to find a bullet to put in my head to stop the headaches. OKAY, not a bullet, but pills. Allergies suck!

Princess in the Dungeon

Well, seems like my wandering fingers had led me to this game. A Princess lacking a name (who may or may not resemble a certain other princess from a game with a certain plumber in it) is locked in this dungeon for some…reason or other.

Okay, we don’t know who put her in their or why, it’s just a lame excuse to set up this puzzle game. The objective is simple in principle. All you have to do is get the jewels to our nameless Princess so she can escape her prison.

Interface: The game is controlled using the mouse. You click the bolts this jewel is clinging to, in an effort to insure that when you click the last one, it rolls to her. YES, she is so damn lazy that you got to make sure it lands next to her. It makes sense for the sake of being a puzzle game, but still…maybe I’m thinking about this a little too hard, who knows.

ANYWAY (sorry for trailing off) back to the game! In the later levels you’ll encounter the likes of destructible blocks, warp points and even air pumps to help you get the jewel to the princess.

One complaint I got relates to the words on the screen shot. Some of the bolts start off near that thing and if you click closely (its too easy to do) you’ll end up opening a new tab/window. I guess the designers were more concerned about pimping out their website as opposed to insuring that…you know, it doesn’t become a hindrance.

Game Play: As I mentioned earlier, it’s a fairly simple in concept, yet at times you might make slip ups at first in later levels. It’s not just enough to click the anchors, you must also in a good deal of cases TIME the clicks just right so the jewel lands right where it needs to be.

Final Judgment: Despite the game featuring a Princess Peach knock off, I liked it while it lasted. The game is short. Very, VERY short and no real replay value outside of four achievements. We’re talking attention span of a goldfish short. But for what its worth try it at least once.

Twas a nice distraction.