When a recreation reaches a sure degree of mainstream reputation, you possibly can just about rely on a deluge of video games making an attempt to repeat the formulation. It’s robust as a result of there are builders who genuinely take inspiration from the favored recreation and wish to supply their very own spin on the mechanics or thought not directly, however then there’s the seedier builders who simply want to experience the coattails of that in style recreation with a view to make a couple of bucks, even when meaning releasing a sub-par clone of it. The road between the 2 varieties of “homages“ isn’t all the time clear, and for me it’s all the time been a case of “you already know whenever you see it“ if a recreation is being earnest in its intentions or is only a low cost cash-in.
Galaxy Combine from Seele Video games is most positively a type of well-intentioned homages. It’s a “watermelon recreation“ which apparently is what we’re calling these now, and was initially popularized by Suika Recreation on Nintendo Swap which grew to become a viral sensation in Japan across the fall of final 12 months. It’s an ideal match for a cell recreation, and whereas Suika has formally come to iOS in Japan, there’s no phrase but on if it can make its manner out to the remainder of the world or not. There is no such thing as a scarcity of comparable video games although, when you go looking for Suika Recreation within the App Retailer. Numerous these are crap… however Galaxy Combine will not be.
Okay, I’ll admit the total title of the sport throwing “Planet Watermelon“ in there seems like a little bit of an search engine optimization seize, however it’s clear this recreation was a labor of precise love, and never only a love of cash. As that subtitle alludes to, Galaxy Combine has you matching several types of stars and planets quite than varieties of fruit, however the thought is identical. Planets sorts come at random and also you drop them from the highest of the display screen into the playfield. If two of the identical planets contact one another they’ll mix into the following largest dimension of planet. As you’re employed in direction of combining into bigger and bigger planets, house turns into a difficulty, and if the playfield turns into crammed past the highest of the display screen it’s recreation over. It’s form of like if Threes!, Tetris, and a physics engine all had a child.
The place Galaxy Combine tries to distinguish itself from its inspiration is with a few distinctive particular talents. You possibly can refill a meter by making matches, and as soon as full you possibly can shake your system to actually shake up all of the planets within the playfield. This may also help you get unstuck out of your present state of affairs and also you’ll probably make a few further matches when you’re at it. The opposite power-up is a bomb you could drop that may get rid of one planet from the playfield, which equally may also help no matter present state of affairs you occur to be in. In addition to these two parts all of the broad strokes in Galaxy Combine appear to be the identical as Suika. Besides perhaps reaching this recreation’s model of a watermelon, which in planet phrases is a black gap, which the developer say solely 0.1% of gamers can obtain.
Oh! There’s one different actually distinctive function to Galaxy Combine, and that’s that it may be performed on an Apple Watch. It sounds ridiculous, however it’s truly fairly playable. You rotate the dial to set your dropper place and faucet the display screen to drop your planet. The playfield is clearly scaled down, however dang it I’m shocked at how nicely the expertise interprets to the tiny Apple Watch display screen and the way enjoyable it may be when you occur to not have your telephone round and wish a watermelon recreation repair. One quirk is that on Apple Watch you possibly can truly wrap across the display screen together with your dropper, which takes some getting used to, however using the crown for aiming your drop is definitely extremely exact, and I really like that it’ll auto-save your progress in the midst of a recreation so you possibly can all the time pop again into it simply when you get distracted.
In the event you’re jonesing for a Suika recreation in your telephone and the browser model isn’t slicing it for you, otherwise you don’t have the power to purchase the iOS model from the Japanese App Retailer, I feel Galaxy Combine will do nicely to scratch the itch for you. You would possibly even come to search out you favor it to the true factor with its cool particular talents and Apple Watch model. There’s additionally a ton of character in its cute pixel artwork planet sorts and their animations, and on-line leaderboards with each day, weekly, and all time lists provides just a little pleasant competitors to the combination. Plus no adverts, IAP, or information assortment. Not a nasty haul for only a buck, which is probably going why the folks in our forums have taken so kindly to this one.
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