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Plank is another match-3 puzzle game where you have to line up 3 or more marbles of the same color to remove them from play. What sets Plank apart is the unique visual style, the interaction of the marbles on a wooden plank that you tilt to the left and right with your iPhone/iPod Touch, and the different special marbles.
The game starts off at a relaxing pace, allowing you to adjust to the sensitivity of the tilting of the wooden plank. However, the longer you play, the faster the marbles will fall and the more variety of colors will drop. There’s a limited amount of weight the plank can hold, so if there’s too many marbles on the plank, the mechanical parts around the plank will start hissing steam and you’ll know you’re entering dangerous territory. If too much weight is on the board, you lose the game and enter your name if you got a high score.
There are different ways to line up marbles, and each way provides different benefits, which allows you to create strategies to get a higher score and remove as many marbles from the plank as possible. Match a vertical match and all marbles below it will be destroyed. Make a horizontal match and all marbles in the row will be destroyed. Make a diagonal match and all marbles in every column involved will be removed.
As you level up, the marbles will fall faster, and more filler marbles will enter the fray. Filler marbles don’t see many matching marbles, so it’s your job to remove them as quick as possible. Sometimes a bomb will fall, and tapping on it will help remove those falling filler marbles … if you’re quick enough. One thing I would’ve liked to have is the ability to see what the next marble will be before it starts falling, this way I can plan ahead accordingly and set up better strategies.
Some people may find the default tilt sensitivity to be too low. I found it to be fine after a couple of games, but there’s an option to adjust the sensitivity as you see fit.
Visually the game looks very good. It’s incredibly polished, from the menu to the gameplay. Strange Flavour has done a good job with the steampunk theme, incorporating it not just in the plank and the surrounding machineries, but also in the menu themselves. Each marble has its own distinctive look, although a couple of them can easily be confused if your eyesight isn’t so great. Plank also has fantastic sound effects and music. Clearly the production quality in Plank was a priority.
Even though there are a plethora of match-3 type of games already in the App Store, Plank’s uniqueness, riveting gameplay, and polish makes it worth checking out. Tilting the device to move marbles around on a plank, and a shake to destroy marbles on the bottom row, is a great way to utilize the accelerometer and breathe some fresh air into the popular match-3 genre of puzzles.
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