Looking to add another match-three puzzler to your iPhone app collection? “You can’t be serious,” you ask. These days, the iTunes App store is brimming over with match-three misfits. Most would hardly see a reason for the addition of another one. Yet, Groovin’ Blocks is enough of a stand out to justify its existence. Zoo Games is marketing Groovin’ Blocks as more of a jam session than a regular puzzle game. After a successful spin as a Wiiware title, Groovin’ Blocks hits the iPhone screen in full force.
A little time with Groovin’ Blocks will remind you of visiting your favorite dance club. Any fan of techno beats and flashing lights will most likely get into this app’s groove. While it has rhythm at its soul, it has puzzling at its heart. Similar to Tetris in layout, players must arrange stacks of colored blocks in an empty space. Blocks are eliminated by matching three or more blocks of the same color. By this process space is freed up for the oncoming blocks from above. Power-ups and multipliers are introduced into the mix by aligning downward arrow hits with beat vibes scrolling in from the sides of the screen. Multipliers remain activated as long as blocks are dropped into place in step with the game rhythm. Dropping blocks with special symbols on them to the beat awards power-ups. Power-ups can increase the value of nearby blocks or can blow up blocks around the power-up holder.
Groovin’ Blocks includes 50 levels which are arranged by songs. Locked levels are opened by reaching scoring achievements with matches, power-ups and multipliers. Casual, Experienced, and Hard difficulty levels can be selected in the playing arena. Each track has a happy / trippy feel while being quite different from the last. An easily navigated user interface is presented but we wished the instruction boxes were a little more flushed out looking. While no online scoring system is yet available, we guess Zoo Games will add one soon.
Certainly, Groovin’ Blocks is no off-the-shelf match three puzzle title. It truly has Tetris on the brain, but pulls off enough originality to set itself apart from the crowd. At its current selling price of $1.99, we highly recommend Groovin’ Blocks for anyone who wants to bust a move while solving a few puzzles along the way.
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