15-Minute Reviews :: Amulet of Tricolor

Hello all and welcome to a game edition of 15-Minute Review! Today’s game is Amulet of Tricolor by WiredPlane Games – A color-matching game with a twist – Drawing lines to clear the gems!

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“Amulet of Tricolor retraces the long journey of Lindal Calanor – the Amulet keeper – through Magic Valley. Traveling with Lindal you will match gems, free fairies, restore Stones of Elements and finally bring prosperity back to Magic Valley.

Be ready for a really puzzling adventure!”

Quick Pros

• Graphics look good – Easy to get going
• Addictive gameplay
• Awards system giving you something to aim for besides just finishing game

Quick Cons

• Sometimes it takes a (long) while to the round to end past goals
• Gameplay seems too easy – Difficulty comes from lack of planning

Expansion

While there are a small army of these ‘color-match’ style games on the internet in one form or another, it seems that people can figure out new variations to make gameplay unique and interesting. The game looks viaually appealing and is very easy to get going. There are tutorials all the way along as you proceed, telling you what a new piece does, or how to do something. There is a short story that progresses as you get further along in the game, also enticing you to continue forward.

While similar to the ‘pop-n-drop’ grid-style color-match games, rather than just clicking on one color to pop all of the same colors around it, this game you have to actually draw ‘lines’, connecting the pieces from edge to edge to clear them. Using the line technique, you have to think about how to draw lines to optimize the number of pieces you can clear, and you can also use it tactically to clear pieces the right way to make others fall in the right place. You’ll find a lot of times you’ll miss a few colors because they are off to the side and no way to link them further in the chain, choosing another path to get a longer chain instead.

Besides the lines concept, there is also interesting goals. For most levels, your goal is to release fairies and pop so many balloons. From what I’ve observed so far, there are two types of fairies; Ones in the open where you have to pop a gem under them, or in ‘dungeons’ in which you just have to pop a chain next to them to open them. There is also other levels where you have to move a figure to a ‘tower piece’ by drawing lines in the direction of the tower with the gems; This at times can get very hard, especially if you get him stuck on something.

There is an awards system to keep you interested in playing and gives some replayability to attempt to get all of the awards. I found some rounds I’d have to go back and definitely try to get them; Other times it would just happen.

While the gameplay is addictive, I did find an issue; I am not sure why, but many rounds would end as you would expect; Once you finish all goals, it ends. However, there have been times when I finished all the goals and the game keeps going on, sometimes 1 or 2 seconds, other times a lot longer. I’m not sure why; There seems to be no logic to why it extends for so long; I can just be sitting there and not doing more chains and still tick away. Other times I’ll keep on blasting through chains and suddenly stop.

My only concern is how long the game will take to complete. So far, I’ve made it to 5-1 (A fair ways along) and only taken me a bit under an hour. Most of the levels were really easy, and ones that weren’t were likely my cause for not paying attention.

Final Verdict

While I do have a concern of game length, the game was surprisingly fun and offered a different twist to the genre. For free, if you like this style of game, you will likely want to pick this title up. As for paying $19.10, it isn’t a bad price for the title, even if you got a few hours of fun play out of it.

Posted by BladedThoth on Saturday, August 11, 2007