Game Reviews

Smiles

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Smiles

Imagine if you tried to combine three games into one. You could have the slow, methodical play of a game like chess, the chancy nature of a snakes and ladders, and just a twist of the aloof appeal of solitaire thrown in for good measure. Of course, the whole thing would likely be a big, overblown mess.

Rather than fusing together elements that probably won't mix in one game, another way of offering up rival titles in one package is to put together a tour de force – a compendium of puzzle excellence rather than a sole title.

Though grouped together under one name, that is essentially what Smiles offers: three separate shape-matching puzzle titles that pull on different strings without disrupting each other.

However, all three have one thing in common: the need to match shapes in lines of three or more. In the main base mode - called Zen - it's not just your job to match shapes in lines of three, but rather to arrange the whole board so that everything lines up.

Swapping the shapes is simply a matter of touching the board where you'd like to place your current piece, with the shape it replaces becoming the next you have to place.

It forms a kind of chain, where the only solution is to mix the board around until every shape is in a line, either horizontally or vertically. However, you can only place a piece where it forms a line of three or more, which results in a lot of forward thinking.

Quite often, you'll find yourself breaking existing chains to form new ones that prove more fruitful. It's a mode that requires a lot of foresight – unlike its two alternatives.

Both Drop and Avalanche are very similar, requiring you to create lines of three or more shapes. The difference here is that doing so clears them from the board, with more shapes moving in to replace them. There are stumbling blocks, though, mixed in to complicate issues a little.

Many of the shapes on offer in Drop come surrounded by ice, making them untouchable. They can still be matched in a line and if they drop from a great height, the ice around them also smashes, freeing them to your will. Rocks are far less flexible, refusing to break up unless they drop from a height of four shapes or more.

All of this pales in comparison to Avalanche, where every piece that falls from the top is initially covered in ice, meaning you're essentially fighting a losing battle from the outset.

But while Avalanche and Drop are all about frantic survival, with play continuing until you run out of combinations, Zen is about patience and playing the long-game.

While your actions never go beyond tapping the screen, Zen is startlingly different to the other two modes (noticeably after extended play) that complement it, and it's likely that it will appeal to a different audience as a result.

And complement it they certainly do. Smiles is a smart little package. By combining three distinct puzzle concepts, it's a game that offers both a degree of urgency and demands cunning. It's certainly not alone on the App Store in offering these sorts of puzzles, but by putting them together in one download, Smiles won't be outdone by them, either.

Smiles

What initially appears to be a set of standard shape-matching conundrums ends up as a neat package that serves fans of pacey as well as prudent puzzle solving.
Score
Keith Andrew
Keith Andrew
With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font. He's also Pocket Gamer's resident football gaming expert and, thanks to his work on PG.biz, monitors the market share of all mobile OSes on a daily basis.