Animalz
iPhone App
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Animalz

Our Review by Christine Morris on February 13th, 2009
Rating: starstarstarstarhalfstar :: RECOMMENDED
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A collapse style game with an added twist. Manipulate the coloured ball positions by clicking one of the circles with an animal in it! The adjacent balls rotate clockwise, and you can score much higher.

Developer: Christian Urquhart (c) PurpleZoo Productions
Price: $1.99
Version Reviewed: 1.1

Graphics / Sound [rating:5/5]
Game Controls [rating:5/5]
Gameplay [rating:3/5]

Re-use / Replay Value [rating:4/5]

Overall Rating: starstarstarstarhalfstar

This is a collapse style game with an added twist of being able to manipulate the ball positions by clicking one that has an animal in it. This will rotate the adjacent balls so that you work out a strategy to click more, trying to reach the levels target within a certain number of clicks.

Most of the collapse games can be easily addictive. Rapid clicking and hoping that you hit some isn't terribly skilful. That's where this game really comes into play. You need to consider exactly where you are clicking because it sets you up at the start of each level with a certain score goal that must be achieved within a certain number of clicks. That is what gives this game an extra dimension to the typical collapse format. In order to reach your goal you have certain circles that have an animal in it. Clicking theses circles makes the balls directly connected to it move clockwise. You can keep clicking to move the balls into the position that you want.

It's great for all ages and really easy to understand after playing a few rounds. The challenge to line up more and more similar colour balls is fun. Rather then what tends to happen with these types of games where you click in a frenzied way to eliminate as many as possible, I found myself actually thinking very carefully about the order and how I could move them using the animal piece to rotate the balls. You can get quite high scores by getting two similar animals next to each other to line up, this gives bonus points.

In the settings you can change the levels of music and sound, and there is also a colour blind mode which is great to include and all developers should take note! The music isn't distracting and the sound effects add to the game play.

One downside about this game is its slightly frustrating that you start from the first level once you lose. It would be much better if you could choose where to start from, or if it started a level below where you lost the game. It can be a little boring having to do the first few levels because those become so easy in a short space of time. If they changed that then I would go back to it a lot more often.

Overall I think this is a good take on an already popular format of game, and it really adds more strategy to how you would traditionally play it. It is a nice feature to get through the levels targeted scores by clicking the 'animalz' faces.

iPhone Screenshots

(click to enlarge)

Animalz - Matchem screenshot 1 Animalz - Matchem screenshot 2 Animalz - Matchem screenshot 3 Animalz - Matchem screenshot 4
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