Puzzle Cosmos by PONOS (Dev of Mr. AahH!!) $3.99 -> $.99

[goiMot]

[RttaM]

Ah another Match 3? - This one looks beautiful.

[ZEROFACES]

Cool

[SkyMuffin]

A new PONOS game? Instant buy. I love his work (Mr. AahH!! and Mr. Space!!).

A sample of the gameplay:

Youtube link | Pop Up

This game is very loosely styled upon tetris. You control a cube of four squares (not all squares all filled) and you drop them down to match 4 or more and clear blocks. Blocks do not clear immediately-- they glow brightly, then begin to fade when they are about to disappear-- so you can set up tons of chains and rack up points and plan blocks accordingly.

It isn't simply just scrolling from side to side, however; your cube rotates and climbs edges and hills. Sometimes you have to frantically press to climb a tower and get the right placement down. It quickly becomes hectic and awesomely fun. The blocks rise from the bottom and you have to prevent them from hitting the line at the top. It's a continuous, sideways-scrollable playing field instead of being a statically-placed field in tetris-- you can scroll to the right and end up at the same spot.

With this 3D-style gameplay and its fast pace, you are thrown into a mix of reflexes and fast reaction and interpretation. You have to plan and execute your moves before the line hits the top, and you have to move before blocks clear and the opportunity for a chain is lost. It's a game which centers around risk, reward, and fast decision making. Can you make the best scores and get to the top of the leaderboards?

There are four modes featured in Puzzle Cosmos:

Standard - Play until you die, every few seconds a new line appears at the bottom.

Time Attack - You have two minutes to achieve as many points as you can, and every few seconds a new line appears.

Dead Line - The line is constantly advancing from below, but as long as you're making matches, it stops moving and you can't die. This is much more challenging than Standard and is more about reflexes.

Flash Rain - Same rules as Dead Line, but you are constantly given blocks which clear out all other blocks of that color. This mode needs to have graphical effects reduced because you can't even see what's happening. otherwise it's fun to toss down blocks like crazy.

You unlock the modes by doing the following:

Time Attack - 10 chains in Standard
Dead Line - 30 chains in Time Attack
Flash Rain - 50 chains in Dead Line

The graphics, music, and sound, are fantastic. It runs perfectly on my 2nd gen iPod touch, even with bloom effects, eye candy, and other sparkles. There are two different skinsets for the blocks-- one colorblind/shiny and one with solid colors. The colorblind mode is a bit questionable as it relies on the movement of lines on the blocks (left/right/up/down) to identify them. I'm not colorblind, though, so I couldn't tell you how well it works. There are two control sets: flick/gesture, and buttons on the bottom, which you can customize placement for.

This is definitely worth the high price. The different modes offer tons of replay, and the game is designed with high quality and fun in mind. Even if you are not a hardcore gamer, you'll be able to pick this up and have a blast in no time at all, simply by virtue of the concept and execution. Buy this!

[epedemix]

I really love Ponos games, I will be buying this first thing in the morning, congrats on a new release.

[ataloss]

Originally Posted by epedemix

I really love Ponos games, I will be buying this first thing in the morning, congrats on a new release.

Picking this up now... just wish there was a HD/universal version.

[djflippy]

This one is a winner, folks; nice game mechanic, great pacing, and several modes with leaderboards.

[your personal robot]

I love PONOS. So this one was an instabuy. Puzzle Prism is still on my device and remains one of the best and most frantic matching games out there.

But this one ... wow ... this is even much, much better.
After playing for an hour now, all I can say is that this is my new favorite matching game. The presentation is fantastic, the gameplay is fresh, the pacing is perfect, you can customize a lot (skin, music, controls) and getting together huge chains is soooooo satisfying. Your screen is bursting of light at some points and you just smile but have to remain highly concentrated.

Big, big congrats to the devs. Once again, they nailed it. And I think, this is by far the best PONOS game. Just gorgeous.

I hope, this one gets a lot of attention.
If you are slightly interested in puzzle and matching games, get it, it's not one single cent too expensive. You really get a pretty perfect game.

[SkyMuffin]

Originally Posted by your personal robot

I hope, this one gets a lot of attention.

Help me convince TA to cover this game. I sent an email but I'm sure two is better than one. Just click on the SUBMIT button at the top.

[headcaseGames]

Originally Posted by SkyMuffin

Just click on the SUBMIT button at the top.

The what?