Hidden Gem: Sandago - A new style of matching game for your Android device

We have a few new hidden gems to tell you about already this week and Sandago by Hot 'Tato Studios is one of them. Sandago is a new take on the classic "match blocks of the same color and then tap to remove" type of games except for one thing, there are no blocks.

Instead of blocks to match up and remove you have sand instead. Unlike blocks in previous games of this nature, the sand comes with some physics involved and can spill down the side of a pile you have which can really help, or hinder, you throughout the game.

Features:

• Unique sand physics gameplay
• 7 sand colors including special acid and concrete sand
• 20 varied hand-painted stages
• Dynamic difficulty levels
• Score attack mode powered by OpenFeint
• Simple controls
• Install to SD card by default

The gameplay is pretty straightfoward, you move the sand pouring spout at the top of the screen to pour the colored sand where you want it to go. Once a pile of any particular colored sand reaches a certain size, you tap on it to remove it. Like I mentioned a moment ago though, sand has a tendency to pour down the sides of your piles which can lead to some interesting results. As you progress through any of the stages more colors of sand get added to the mix making it harder to match them all up without all the colors blending up.

Graphically Sandago has a bit of a retro flare to it with the sand having a pixelated look to it, similar to what you would find in older games but it works well for this title. Each stage also has some sort of famous location in it such as the London Bridge. These aren't just pretty little images to make the game look nice either. Each location affects the stage and your sand in different ways whether it's making the sand roll to one side more or it makes the sand fall is some weird fashion that you'll have to adapt to.

Sandago has only been out for about 2 days now and while the free lite version has roughly 1000-5000 downloads, the full paid version is sitting at around 10-50 downloads only which is a bit surprising because these sort of matching elimination style puzzle games are usually quite popular. A possible reason for this could be the screenshots, they don't do the game justice and you don't get a feel for the physics in the game. Once I tried it though, it was pretty fun and makes for a good time killer.

You can try out Sandago for free in the lite version or you can purchase the full version for $2.30. Expect a full review of Sandago coming soon. It is recommended that you have a higher-end Android device, preferably with a 1GHz cpu although it will run on lower speeds.

Developer Website: Hot 'Tato Studios

Android Market Link: Sandago