It’s raining crystalline marbles! Colorix HD is your hi-res twist on the tried-and-true, “stuff falls from the sky” Tetris-type games, featuring gorgeous visuals and plenty of high-scoring combo options. If you’re fortunate enough to own a newfangled XVGA Android phone, Colorix HD will mesmerize you in short-order.
Title: Colorix HD | Developer: Awesome Software S.A. | Genre: Puzzle, Action |
Players: 1 | Version: 1.7.2 | Size: 8.2MB | Price: €1.99
Click QRC image (from phone) or scan with a barcode reader.
You have an older phone, you say? No problem. Search the Market for the standard-def version instead; both are beautiful, solid games worthy of purchase. I highly recommend for any Tetris and Bejewled lovers.
Similar to Tetris, in Colorix you’ll find triads of shiny, alluring marbles descending from the clouds with an increasingly faster clip. Each group of marbles is vertical (alas, no strange shapes) in orientation, but with a swipe of your finger, you re-arrange the ordering of the column. You only have a short amount of time to order the set of marbles to your liking, then double-tap to speed-up the descent (earns extra points). Every combination of three or more like-colored marbles, be they horizontal, vertical, or diagonal, nets you points and clears the marbles from the stack. To add to your frustration, not only do you need to plan the current drop, but the next stack is shown as a preview in the upper-right side of the screen. Can you multitask? Let’s hope so… because it only gets faster and more crowded, the longer you survive.
In addition to the standard set of pretty little green, blue, red, yellow, and pink marbles, you’re given two special ones: timers and wilds. Timers are black with a white number, indicating the number of turns it takes to get rid of the annoying thing. Even more depressing is when you land a group of three timers… and no, you can’t match them for points. The wild marbles count as any color, and provide the opportunity for some crazy combos!
As the handy little tutorial will explain, there are a dozen-or-so different combos, ranging from a 90 degree “L” shaped group of matching colors to a high-scoring “ladder”. These combos are what you’ll want to aim for, and will be the bread-winners of your game.
Like most games of its type, your Colorix session ends when your stack of unused marbles gets so high that you can’t possibly stack any more.
Controls: The controls in Colorix are simple: swipe vertically to rearrange the marbles in a column, swipe horizontally to move the stack left and right, and double-tap to send it flying to the ground. It was somewhat disappointing to discover that you cannot rotate a column horizontally, but you can’t have it all… The game is very responsive to touch, almost too much so. I’ve found myself, time and again, accidentally double-tapping the screen and sending an errant column of mis-matched marbles to its doom. Frustrating. May your tappage be precise and succinct.
Graphics: The graphics in the standard-edition Colorix were beautiful, and are more so in the HD version (as would be expected). On my Evo 4G, the game lights-up the screen with its vibrant colors and shimmering, glass-like animations. The marbles are very pretty – something Gollum would covet – but the backgrounds, even though nicely rendered, tend to be a little too static. I would have liked to see more variety in the backgrounds; but that’s just being nit-picky.
Sound: The soundtrack to Colorix is pan-flute meets synth. It’s quite uplifting in a neo-Lion King sort of way, and fits the airy, glassy theme nicely. Strangely, the sweeping score ends abruptly once the game starts, leaving you with only a smattering of “tink” and some nice, glass-shattering sound effects – perhaps a testament to how much concentration is actually required to play.
Options: The Colorix menu allows you to toggle sound effects, music, vibration, and start-up tips. There’s also a high-score board just in case you’re into mocking yourself after a good beating.
Verdict: In my very-humble opinion, Colorix, much like Tetris and Bejewled, is one of those standard time-wasters that should be on every capable phone. It’s quick to pick-up, a game lasts as long as you can, and the graphics are beautiful. With a little more variety – maybe some shapes, column rotation, and some varied backgrounds, this could easily hit the 5-star mark.
Rating: ★★★★☆
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