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- Rating:
- Price: $2.99 (Get It – Free Demo)
- Version: 1.0
- Official Site: Moonlight Games
Rising Blocks is yet another match-3 puzzle game available in the App Store. The game plays like a classic puzzle game on the console, called Puzzle League, of which Tetris Attack on the SNES is part of that series. Rising Blocks brings this style of gameplay to the iPhone/iPod Touch, and it brings along 5 different gameplay modes to choose from; Endless, Stage Mode, Time Trial, Vs CPU, and Puzzle. The Puzzle mode itself has 50 puzzles to solve.
While the UI isn’t anything to write home about, and the graphics are a little dull, what Rising Blocks excels at are gameplay and replay value. The object of the game is to match three of the same colored blocks, either vertically or horizontally before the stack reaches the top of the screen. Blocks can only be moved to the left or right, but can move as far as you want it to go. There’s a button on the left side of the screen you can touch to make more blocks appear at the bottom, which can help you score more points and combos.
There are no powerups/special blocks, which would’ve made the gameplay have even more variety than it already has. Additionally, the blocks are small enough so that most adult fingers may occasionally move the wrong block. Not the fault of the game, but playing against the CPU means that you get a tiny window to see how your opponent is doing, which takes a little bit away from the classic gameplay formula.
If a friend has the game and is on the same WiFi network, the two of you can play against each other head-to-head. I wasn’t able to test this feature, but I imagine it’d be a lot of fun to play. There are achievements that can be unlocked as you play, and it also tracks your stats (combos made, highest chain, etc.). The sound effects are sparse and simplistic, but do the job nicely. There’s no music, but you can easily play your own music library while playing.
Rising Blocks isn’t a flashy game by any means, but it is a lot of fun to play. I much prefer a fun game that doesn’t have extreme graphics than a game that looks good but has little gameplay (Kroll, for example.) There is a lot of replay value, with five gameplay modes to choose from and mix things up. The addition of WiFi multiplayer is a nice bonus, too. Most puzzle games on the iPhone are fun for a few hours at the most, but I’ve found Rising Blocks has kept me entertained for a lot longer.
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