Scurvy Scallywags [Beep Games] - $0.99

Match-3 RPG’s have gained quite a bit of ground in the AppStore. Games like Puzzle Quest, Puzzle & Dragons, Tower Of Saviors and many more put you in control of adventures or a warrior and have you match tiles to attack, defend, cast spells, ect. While there are plenty of fantasy games within this genre, developers rarely break from this mold. Here’s where Beep Games comes in. Their new title, Scurvy Scallywags, has you playing as a pirate. Not only are you playing as a pirate, but you’re playing as a pirate in an on stage play. Within this, there’s quite a few more branching off that Beep Games has done from the typical ‘tried-n-true’ mechanics that can be found within this fledgling genre. 

Scurvy Scallywags starts off with the director telling you that the house is packed and that the future of the theatre is riding on your performance and the play being a huge hit. From here, you get to pick the look of your character. As you progress throughout the game you’ll unlock more costume pieces, some of which have extra stats to boost your character’s strength. You’ll be able to choose different hats, faces, shirts, shoes and weapons and once you unlock a few of the costume pieces with stats attached the customization becomes something that you’ll be messing with quite a bit. 

After you choose your initial clothing items, the play will begin and you’ll face off against the evil pirate captain who has stolen treasure and hid it around the world. Sailing from island to island you’ll start to do battle with enemies on the laid out tiles. Making matches of 3 or more can earn you gold, attack points or other various items which you can also sell once you complete the stage, helping you to earn more and more cash to put towards power-ups and other items. As you make matches, the board will shift depending on which way you swipe the matching piece into place. If you swipe from right to left, the empty spaces will fill in from the far right side of the screen, swipe top to bottom, and pieces will fall from the top and so on. Enemies will randomly appear on the board as you get further into each stage, and it’s up to you to try and match enough sword tiles that you can fight the enemies without taking damage yourself. Each enemy has a number above their character showing their attack strength. With your attack strength shown in the upper part of the screen, as well as your hit points, experience and earned gold. 

Defeating an enemy will give you a special treasure. Collect it and you’re given the chance to spin a wheel which can either get you pieces for your ships or bits of gold. While you’re moving the pieces of the board around, as well as yourself while trying to either move towards enemies or away from them, you’ll be able to collect special items like presents which give you another spin on the wheel, band aids which restore HP, or items which are needed to complete objectives. Point being there’s a whole lot going on, and it’s great having this much depth alongside the story and RPG elements. 

Once you get enough ship pieces, you’re able to build a ship which will give you some extra stats and generally help make life a little easier. Stronger ships are unlocked as you level up. Leveling up also unlocks special abilities which you can use mid-battle, like having an extra fighter to help you take out the enemies, turning all of the most common piece on the board into gold, extra turns that do not effect the movement or attack of the enemy and much, much more. 

If you don’t manage to make it through the game, no worries. Dying does put you back at the beginning, but you’ll keep all of your items, gold, upgrades and clothing, making it easier to get further each time you play. Even after completing the game, each of the game’s island’s produce randomly generated levels giving you pretty much endless replay value. On top of that there’s also a whopping 52 GameCenter achievements to try and unlock. 

With Scurvy Scallywags priced at $0.99, it’s an incredible deal. While the game’s mechanics aren’t incredibly original, there are a lot of them and quite a few do make the game feel very fresh and new. It’s like Beep Games took every Match-3/RPG and meshed all of their mechanics together and wrapped a great story around them, giving the game loads of depth while making it insanely fun. Even if you’re not a fan of the genre, or have lost interest because of all of the ‘clones’ hitting the AppStore over the last year or so, this is one title that might just get you into, or back into, the genre. If you are still a fan of the genre, Scurvy Scallywags is a must own, and easily one of the best within the Match-3/RPG genre. I really can not recommend it enough.

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Super Monsters Ate My Condo [PikPok + Adult Swim] - $0.99

One of my, and many others, favorite iOS game, Monsters Ate My Condo, just received a sort of sequel, titled Super Monsters Ate My Condo, done by PikPok, the same team that brought us the original. However, feelings are mixed when it comes to the Super version. Some people think it should have been an update to the original, others, plain out free, as it’s treated like a freemium title, while others love it and it’s timed gameplay. Hopefully, we’ll be able to help you decide whether or not to pick this one up.

Diving right on in, Super MAMC displays quite a few differences from the original, and while the core gameplay is the same, these differences do make it a completely new experience. Personally, I don’t think it would have worked as an update to the original. Scores would need to be reset, gameplay would be strange going back and forth, and the addition of the power-up/coin system just doesn’t fit in next to the original. 

The first thing you might notice? SMAMC contains a shop. Here, you’ll be able to purchase a coin doubler, coins, and 3 hats for each of the 4 monsters found in the game. Each hat does the same thing, adds a +3 multiplier to that monsters scoring system, and this is stackable, meaning that if you purchase two hats, the multiplier goes up to +6. The coin doubler is priced at $1.99, and there’s packs of coins set at $1.99 (20,000), $2.99 (50,000), $4.99 (130,000), $9.99 (300,000) and $24.99 (1,000,000). Sadly, these coins are also used to purchase boosters before every game which can drastically alter your score, with the more powerful boosters costing upwards of 2,000-3,000 coins. That’s not to say that you can’t score big without them, just that you’d probably be able to score even bigger if you had used them, leaving the top scores on the board for those that either grind for coins, or purchase them through IAPs, which, in an insanely high-scoring game like MAMC, is really a big no-no. 

The second big thing you’ll notice. The 2 minute time-limit. SMAMC has one gameplay mode, and it’s timed. Now, I’m not saying that this is a bad thing, in fact, I love that games are a lot shorter now. Chances are, if you really got into the original, games could last upwards of 1 or 2 hours depending on how careless/quick you got flicking condos left and right. With SMAMC, that frantic, action packed gameplay is all stuffed into one 2 minute game. You are able to extend this with the Time Booster, at the end of the game on the item wheel, and by matching clocks, all of which we’ll get to in a sec, but basically, each game will be between 2 and 5 (if you’re lucky) minutes. 

Now, the boosters. There are 10 boosters total which will be unlocked in packs of 3, with the last one unlocked by itself, as you complete sets of objectives and level up. The first 3 are; Double Start, which activates the green monster’s power for the first 30 seconds of a game, Boost Start, which makes the yellow monster’s 10x score multiplier active for the first 20 seconds of a game and Extra Time, which adds 30 seconds to the clock. Next, you’ll unlock Starting Cat, which starts you off with a cat condo somewhere in the beginning of the tower, Slow Chain, which gives you twice as long to make matches and build a chain and Multiplier +10, which, you guessed it, starts you off with an added 10 points on your beginning multiplier. The last 4 boosts are some of the most powerful in the game; Mega Boost, which activates the yellow monster’s power up (x10 multiplier) for the first 15 seconds of every Mega Zone (3 diamonds matched) you enter. Double Good gives you 2x the Piggy Banks, Clocks and Multipliers for the first 30 seconds of a game. We’ll get more into the banks and clocks next. The last power-up you’ll unlock is the Starting Dog. This power-up is the most expensive, but boosts upgrades like Cats, and can be fed to a monster when you want to activate two monster’s powers at once. 

You’re able to select 3 boosters before every game, and once you either complete the game, or once your tower crumbles. Whether it takes you 3 seconds or the full 2 minutes (or longer), the boosters are gone at the end of the game, and you’ll need to purchase them again in the next game if you want to use them. 

The new condos are all great. I have to admit that I didn’t expect them to have such a drastic effect on gameplay, but they really do. Each new condo can be removed by matching condos around it, with them either in the center, or on the edges of the match. First off, there’s two new pink condos. One is a pig, which is a Piggy Bank, giving you one coin for each condo in the match, while the other is a Clock, adding on one second for each condo that‘s in the match, or you can feed the clock to a monster to add 1 second to your timer. If you manage to match up 3 Banks or Clocks, or a mix of both, you’ll earn a Multiplier Condo. This multiplier condo adds a multiplier of 1 for each condo that you match around it, or can be fed to a monster to add 1 to your multiplier. There’s also Nukes, starting with a timer set at 10, if you don’t destroy these before they hit 0, they’ll blow up your whole tower, and result in a game over. Acid condos are also included, starting with a counter at 5, they count down to 0 and, if not destroyed by then, melt the condo under them. Once they melt a condo, the timer sets back at 5, and counts down again. These can eat through a whole tower if you let them. Both the Nuke and Acid condos timers can be reset if you power up the red monster. 

Another addition to the game is the ability to match condos between Bronze, Silver and Gold condos, no matter how long it’s been since they were created. In the original MAMC, you could only do this for a short period of time after the Bronze, Silver or Gold condos were created and appeared slightly transparent. In Super MAMC, you are ALWAYS able to have one of them in between condos, and make a match. This allows for some seriously large matches, especially once you throw in all the new and original (red, green, yellow, blue, concrete, bombs, cats, diamonds) condos found throughout the game. 

At the end of each game, you’re able to spin a wheel which can get you an additional 15 or 30 seconds of gameplay (if this is won, you will not spin again after those 15/30 seconds), extra coins (which are also doubled by the coin doubler), a random free booster your next game, 2X coins your next game, or nothing at all. If you win a free booster or 2X coins, you must play a game after that for it to be active. If you exit the game and restart it later, the free boost or 2X coins will no longer be available/active. 

The last addition is the inclusion of Events. For a heafty price (10,000 coins) you can play one game in Oriental Mode which increases the speed of everything, gives you a 10x multiplier along with a +5 multiplier for every 5 condos and bad condos count down quicker, all set in an oriental theme. Getting this option is random, and you never know when it'll pop up. If you don't have 10,000 coins, you won't be able to experience it, but it can definitely have a huge impact on your final score if you do. 

With the introduction of the coin/booster system, Super Monsters Ate My Condo really does feel more like a freemium game that pushes gamers towards purchasing more coins via IAP in order to score big, which, let’s face it, is what MAMC is all about. It’s incredibly sad to see such an outstanding developer like PikPok take this direction, but hopefully their next game won’t follow suit. For $0.99, it’s definitely worth checking out, especially if you’re a fan of the original, and would like to see what new condos and boosters can add to the gameplay. There is a certain amount of strategy in choose which boosters to play with, depending on how you play the game, and yes, there is a set of boosters here for everyone. Being Universal and including seamless iCloud support make Super MAMC even easier to recommend, but it’s still very hard to look past the fact that gamers can basically purchase their way onto the leaderboards. If the Time-Limit Mode in the original and lite versions of MAMC is something you enjoy quite a bit, Super MAMC will probably be right up your ally. But if having extremely expensive permanent boosters which you could turn on or off, and a separate leaderboard for gamers who don’t use boosters were included in this sequel, it would have been a must own game for everyone. 

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Linkies [Visual Dreams] - $0.99

Match-3 Puzzlers are, like almost every genre in the AppStore, a dime a dozen these days. However, like we’ve been seeing lately, the genre still has some new life in it. This time, Visual Dreams is taking the Match-3 gameplay a step further with their new release, Linkies, a Match-3 Puzzler with a strong emphasis on Physics-Based gameplay, and why no one has done this yet is beyond me as the two genres really do mix together extremely well. 

Linkies tells the story of a robot from the Dark Ages who’s awoke, spewing blocks of various shapes and colors all over the Linkies beautiful world. Now it’s up to you to clean it all up. There are two modes of gameplay, Story Mode and Blitz Mode, but the core gameplay in each is identical; Match 3 or more blocks of the same color to clear them from the gameplay area. 

Story Mode has 90 levels spread across 5 different worlds, while Blitz Mode is endless and goes until blocks reach the top of the screen.  In Story Mode, you’re awarded up to 3 stars in each level, based on how quickly you can complete the stage, as well as coins throughout the level. You’re able to use these stars and coins in the game’s shop to purchase upgrades and power-ups. Once you unlock the power-ups, they’ll be available for use in Blitz Mode.

Now, what really sets Linkies apart from other Match-3 games, it’s physics-based mechanics. In the game, there’s 4 different colored blocks that you’ll need to try and clear out of each level. Once you clear out a group of blocks, the blocks on top of them fall down, filling in the hole that you’ve created. This, by itself, doesn’t sound too interesting, but when you throw in the level designs and mechanics, the gameplay can get pretty nice. Some levels include moving platforms that mix up the blocks, others have edges that squeeze together, pushing the blocks in tight. Basically, the blocks will be constantly mixed up throughout each level, meaning that you’ll need to be quick when creating your matches. Once you add in the game’s power-ups and upgrades, bringing bombs, cluster chains, mystery shapes, grenades, slow motion, X-Ray, color bombs and more into the mix, interesting is definitely one way to explain it all. 

The shop is split up into two sections, Upgrades and Consumables. Upgrades are purchased with the stars that you earn at the end of each level while Consumables are purchased with coins. Everything is reasonably priced, but, like most other games with shops, there are IAPs for both currencies. However, you’re not required to purchase anything extra in order to progress through the whole game, or to unlock anything special, so it’s set-up more like a donation if you’re enjoying the game, and want to help support the Visual Dreams studio.

The graphics and animations in Linkies are very well done. Each of the 5 different worlds has their own beautifully crafted environment, the pond, field, stream, sewer, and resting place of the block spewing robot. Though the environments are very nice, they are also fairly dark, leaving the extremely vibrant blocks stand out above everything else. Visual Dreams stated that they let their graphic designer ‘go crazy’, and it definitely shows. The animations are smooth, and add to the gameplay, with the explosions, connecting lines, and everything else done very well, and mixing in with the physics of the game perfectly. 

GameCenter integration is included, with a leaderboard for Blitz Mode and 28 achievements. Blitz Mode will constantly ask for you to log into Facebook in order to show the leaderboards and shop, which can get pretty annoying until you do. If you don’t have FB though, you will be unable to purchase consumable items before each Blitz game, which is pretty frustrating. Though, it’s not required for you to submit scores to GC, and clicking on the ‘Leaderboard’ GC icon at the top of the page will take you to the GC board. Aside from that, which is my only real complaint, Linkies is a great Match-3 game. Priced at $0.99 and being Universal, if you’re a fan of the genre, the physics-based mechanics definitely make Linkies stand out, and with the endless Blitz mode and 90 Story mode levels, there’s plenty of content to play through. Visual Dreams has definitely revived my love of Match-3 gameplay. 

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Review Rewind: Crazy Rings (Previously Riot Rings)

Crazy Rings by Cervo Media, released as Riot Rings, is a fantastic bubble popper. Using zoo animals as marbles, and including boss-like fights, along with the amount of polish, 3 Gameplay Modes and replay value enhanced by GameCenter support all make Crazy Rings one of the best Zumaesque titles on the iOS. Now, still a year later, Crazy Rings can be found on both my iPad and my iPod, and with the added Freeplay and Zen gameplay modes, chances are it'll never leave my devices, and will be transferred over to every new device I happen to get. If you're a fan of the genre, this is definitely one game you'll want to make sure and check out. 

**Note: This review was written after playing Version 1.1

--Click Here to check out the original review--

Riot Rings is a new Zuma-type bubble popper from Cervo Media GMBH. In it, you’ll match up groups of 3 or more different animal bubbles to clear out multiple rings thought over 100 levels and 3 different gameplay modes. Right off the bat, I want to say that Riot Rings is now my favorite Zuma type game, knocking The Temple Zumas out of the #1 spot. Cervo Media has taken the bubble popper game, and expanded it in a pretty original way. Instead of trying to clear out the bubbles before they get to the end point, you try and clear out the bubbles before the key on one end, and lock on the other end of the ring touch each other. To make it even more interesting, animals are flung into the rack from the outsides of the screen along with the animals that you fling into the rack from the middle of the screen.

The controls are pretty much like every other Zuma-type game out there, where you touch where you want your bubble to go. And like all other Zuma-type games out there, this is easier said that done. There’s various twists and turns in the rings that give you some pretty awkward angles to shoot at. 

Also, sometimes there’s inner and outer rings, causing you to sometimes wait for one ring to pass before you can hit an outer ring, or you will have a ring around your shooting area, with more rings on other parts of the screen, or even sometimes shake, constantly move, speed up, or shrink in completely, causing you to miss your target, or even worse, causing the key and lock to come together. There are, however, power-ups, which can help out big time. There’s a power-ups ranging from pieces of chicken that clear out big sections of the racks, to needles which can slow down the movement. These, put together with bosses, stones, and really so many different mechanics, that I can’t name or describe them all, makes Riot Rings easily one of the most interesting and fun Zuma-type games available in the AppStore.

The graphics are top notch, very polished, and retina display supported. The clouds hovering above some parts of the screen add a lot to the feel of the game, as do the great animal sounds. The controls are very tight and responsive, there’s GameCenter leaderboards, 3 star time-based rankings to try and snag, and re-playable levels along with Endless and Zen Modes to play after you’re done with the Campaign. 

Riot Rings is great for all ages, and even my wife has started to obsess over it, and there’s 3 available profiles so that multiple gamers can play on one device. I can not say one bad thing about this game. It’s done extremely well, adds a lot of gameplay mechanics to the tired Zuma-like gameplay, and you’re bound to see something new every time you play. For $0.99, it’s a steal. The iPad version is $2.99, which is still a great price for all the content and gameplay you’ll get out of this game. I really can not recommend it enough, even if bubble popping isn’t your thing, this game is sure to show you a great time, and give you tons of hours of entertainment.

**Note: Crazy Rings HD is available for free, and the XL version (iPad Build) is available for $0.99

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Supermagical [Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team + Gala Pocket] - $0.99

Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team. What a name for a development studio. Creators of Pro Zombie Soccer, and including team members who’ve worked on Plants Vs. Zombies and Worms, it’s fair to say that Mega Team knows exactly what they’re doing when it comes to creating video games. Their newest title, Supermagical, launched in Spain’s AppStore back in June of this year. Wanting to include a CO-OP Multiplayer Mode before releasing the game worldwide, the game hit a little bit of a snag. Well now, 2 months later, Mega Team is still struggling with getting all of the bugs and issues worked out with the CO-OP Mode, but they’ve decided to give the world the Single Player Mode now, saving Multiplayer for a future update. 

Supermagical is a bubble matching game along the same lines as Bust-A-Move, Bubble Burst, Spaliens and Snorbies.  As already stated, the game only contains a Story Mode, but with 3 continents and 71 stages, there’s loads of content to keep gamers busy until the CO-OP and Verses Modes are added. You’ll follow along the story of Nina, a young witch, who, while trying to make a super powerful spell, wound up releasing her 7 evil witch sisters and thousands of little destructive creatures. Once the other witches find out what happened, they teleport to the heart of destruction to banish the evil from their world. Little Nina, unfortunately, can not teleport and it’s up to you to guide her on her journey, defeat her evil sisters and the creatures along the way to help the other witches take care of the evil for good. 

Now, not only are you given some unique special powers at the start of the game, but you’re also able to purchase items and gain friends as you progress. Starting off, you’re given lightning strikes, which automatically take care of any critters which are let loose by destroying the enemies behind them. As you take out groups of critters, they leave coins scattered about the playing field. Collecting these help you to gain enough currency so that you can purchase power-ups as well as helpful friends in the shops that are next to each stage. You can also collect 3 bags of currency that are hidden around each stage, but only show up after you complete the level. This little bit of interaction with the Map Menu is a great addition to the game, and is a prime example of just how much work has gone into each and every aspect of the game, minus the boss battles, which we’ll get to in a second. 

Every stage has it’s own shop. Here, there are 3 items you’ll be able to purchase. Once you purchase these 3 items, the shop will be empty for the rest of the game. These items range from coins which you can use to play a spiffy little memory mini-game where you match up two like cards without picking skull cards, candy that lets you change the color of your bubble shot, friends that stay with you permanently and help take out critters along the way, and more. 

You’ll also save various ferries as you defeat your sisters. The ‘boss fights’ with your sisters are a little disappointing though. Once you reach a sister, you’re required to answer questions with multiple choice answers until you answer correctly, and then you’ll ‘battle it out’ by playing a typical level. There is no real interaction with your sisters aside from the dialogue, which kind of stinks. I was really hoping for some extreme boss battles where you would have to injure your sister until she was so weak, you could send her back to the Underworld. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, and in a game with this much polish and the crazy amount of work that you can clearly see went into making the game, these ‘boss battles’ do not fit in with the gameplay, and are pretty disappointing. 

Graphically, the look and feel of Supermagical is great. It’s very clear that loads of time and effort has gone into the creation of each and every environment, character model, and menu, as well as the animations, all playing out smooth as butter and adding immensely to the enjoyment of the game. The music and sound effects are also a huge plus, and compliment the graphical feeling of the game perfectly. Along with 3 star rankings for each stage, based on how quickly you can complete them, there’s GameCenter support with 35 achievements, adding quite a bit to the replay value. 

For $0.99, being Universal, supporting Retina Display for the new iPad, and with more content on the way, Supermagical is a great buy. Even though there’s only one gameplay mode, and the boss battles are disappointing, I can’t think of one other reason not to recommend this fantastic bubble matcher. It’s clear in just about every single aspect of the game that Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team has put in an insane amount of time, effort and work into the game, and once Versus and CO-OP Modes are added, it has the potential to be the best Bubble Matching game available for the iOS. If you’re a fan of the genre, it’s a must buy. 

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Jewels With Buddies [Stofle Designs] - FREE

A couple of months ago, I wouldn’t have really called myself an online multiplayer fan. But with all of the great MP games being released lately, I’ve definitely been turned into one. Now, being a pretty big fan of Match-3 games, and with this new-found enjoyment of online gameplay, Stofle Designs Jewels with Buddies has wound up in my current rotation of games that I play every day. Battling it out against another player, trying to get the best combined score for 3 rounds of match-3 mayhem is a lot more fun than I thought it would be.

Once you register, or connect to your Facebook profile, you’re able to start games with friends from yoru contacts list, find a random buddy, have a rematch with someone you’ve already played, search for a username, or have a pass-n-play session with a friend on the same device. 

As you play, you’ll earn coins. These are used to pick power-up animals who are able to help you out throughout your game, and also to take spins on the slots. Each animal has a different ability, and is charged up by making certain types of matches while you play. For instance, the Panda Bear eats a whole row of gems and is charged up when you make white matches, while the Elephant destroys half of the board, and is recharged by matching purple gems, and so on. 

The scoring system is definitely a plus. With each match you make, you earn points, and if there’s a coin inside one of the gems, you’ll gain coins as well. But if you keep making matches quickly, the amount of points you’ll earn will keep rising. There are also multipliers randomly found on the gems which increase as time counts down. If you tap the gems with a multiplier before making a match with them, the multiplier will be applied to that match. 

You’re given 3 rounds, each being 60 seconds long, to earn as many points as you can. After each round, your score is sent to the other player, and then you wait for them to play a round and send it back. I haven’t ever had this much fun with a match-3 MP game. Witch Wars and Matching With Friends both seemed way too unbalanced, and pushed towards IAP, and Syntax Match, while decent, is a little too difficult when it comes to quickly finding matches because of the tiles used. Don’t get me wrong, there are IAPs included in Jewels with Friends, and if you want the best animal power-ups every time you play, you’ll probably need to purchase some coins, but with the coins earned at a decent rate, and being able to choose some of the better animals every 3 or so games, even without purchasing IAPs, it’s very well balanced, and doesn’t feel like you’re constantly being pushed towards the IAPs, which is becoming more and more rare with free games. 

So, if you’re looking for an online asynchronous match 3 title, you should definitely check out Jewels with Friends. Even though there’s no extra modes, and no single player gameplay, what is there is done very well, and priced at FREE, there’s really no reason not to give it a try. It’s definitely a title that’ll wind up staying on my device for quite some time. 

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Gemibears [Piston Games] - $0.99/$1.99

Matching games have grown quite a bit, and gained a pretty solid following on the iOS. Playrix title, Call of Atlantis, was my first real iOS matching experience, and since then, I’ve been hooked. But as with all genres, with massive amounts of titles comes massive amounts of cloning, and repetitiveness, so it’s always nice to see something with new mechanics added to the lineup. Moscow based Piston Game’s most recent addition to the AppStore, Gemibears, happens to be a Match-2 title, with some interesting gameplay mechanics and modes to keep it fresh, and help it stand out in the crowd. 

When you first start up Gemibears, you’re only given the option to play Story Mode. But as you progress through the game, you’ll be able to unlock Action, Tactic and Classic Modes, all giving you different takes on the Match-2 play. As you can imagine, the goal is to match as many bears as you can by moving them around the board. You’ll always have one space open to move a bear or selection of bears to. You do not need to make a match in order to move, which does help if you’d like to plan moves out, or are stuck, and need to a piece across the play-field. Being able to move entire rows of bears also helps to make multiple matches at once, so there’s plenty of luck tied in with the strategy, as most Matching Games tend to use.

What makes Gemibears interesting is the mechanics that the game includes into the gameplay as you make your way through the first world. There are some bears which will fall asleep, making them impossible to move until you match one of their sides with another bear. There’s also a zipper at the bottom of the play-field which is your time meter, and once it runs down, it’s game over. But you’ll have bears which have clocks on them, and add to the time. This isn’t anything new within the genre, but the way that they’re utilized keeps the game interesting. 

Story Mode includes more than 60 levels to make your way through, all split up into different worlds. As you complete the worlds, the other gameplay modes are unlocked. Action Mode gives you a certain amount of time to get as many points as you can, also utilizing the bears with clocks, so you could potentially wind up with a huge score if you’re quick to act. Tactic Mode is the most strategic mode, and is reminiscent of Monster Flip’s Puzzle Mode. You’re given 3 turns to make a match or you’ll loose a life, with each match refilling your turns. Lives are regenerated once you score enough points, and you need to get the best score you can before all your lives are gone. Classic Mode is your typical relaxed gameplay mode. There’s no time limit, and you’re able to make moves until sleeping bears make it so that you have no more moves left. 

There are extras which you can find in the main menu as well, like the Gemipedia, which collects information on all the bears you’ll come across in the game, Wallpapers and local scores. The graphics, animations, controls, music, and effects all fit together nicely to give gamers a very polished game. If you’re a fan of the genre, Gemibears will be a great addition to your device, and with the Tactical and Action modes, which is probably where you’ll spend the most time, there’s endless challenging reparability. The developers have stated that more planets for Story Mode, as well as more bears, and more bonuses will be added in future updates. Also helping to add to the replay value is GameCenter integration with boards for Classic, Action, and Tactic Modes. Unfortunately, there’s no achievements, so if you’re not a score-chasing fanatic, the GC support will be kind of lost on you. But for $0.99 for the iPhone version, and $1.99 for the HD build, it’s definitely worth checking out, it might just wind up turning into one of your favorite match-games. 

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