Clickr

 
Developer: Ntreev Soft Co., Ltd
Steam Release: Dec 2010
Hours Played: 5.0
Similar To: Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe / Tumblestone /  Yosumin 
Rating: 3/5 Parsnips





*No longer available on Steam.

GAMEPLAY
Match 3s come in all sorts of shapes and sizes but the general principle remains the same: click on things very fast; watch the symbols cascade down; get the tiles to land next to each other and watch as they disappear with a satisfying kaboom! In Clickr when a 2x2 block of the same colour forms, the squares fuse and link together becoming one large block. Clicking on this will then cause a satisfying explosion but to get more bang for your buck it's worth holding back on that until many other same coloured blocks are attached to it through a chain. To assist in this task, stars may be clicked on to form a small square of the same nearby colour but the bad news is that your fun is impeded by unclickable grey blocks (unless you can also make a 2x2 block with them) that are fixed and get in the way. 

BALANCE & PACE
In addition to this, and usually used when you want a different angle on things or when you're just plain stuck, you have the option to rotate the playing grid 90 degrees at a time. In effect this means that blocks can actually fall in four different directions relative to the grid. Puzzle mode has 50 stages that challenges you to achieve a set score within a certain time. Battle mode and Push mode have you competing with the AI in a test to see how fast you can make combos and link colours together. The emphasis on the game is all about speed and making combos so if you like match 3s with the added challenge of a brutal time-pressure element then Clickr will be right for you. It is also a good game if you like to improve on your time and beat your best score because it tracks these stats well.
 

PRESENTATION & DESIGN

The style is quite kiddie-ish with kids screaming out and giggling as you play. Japanese voice-overs are thrown in but it's good for all ages. In Push mode they cheer and groan accordingly. The art-style is very Liquorice Allsorts but it works well. The game brings you 5 modes of play that are displayed at the start-screen, albeit in an unsymmetrical and haphazard layout. Your unimportant Options, Records and Skins are tucked away in the bottom right corner. On clicking one of the first three modes; Puzzle, Battle and Push you are taken to a further screen where you either select a further type of game (in Puzzle mode) or one of 6 difficulty levels (in Battle or Push mode). IQ you unlock by completing puzzles and Multi is the unpopulated multiplayer section. 

PROGRESS SYSTEM
The game does a good job in keeping the player well-informed of stats. When you enter Puzzle mode the screen tells you how many of the 50 stages you have completed and your best score on the 60 second challenge. In Battle mode, clicking on the square of the difficulty level brings up a menu with your Top 5 scores and the time it took to complete it and, likewise, Push mode does the same. Additionally, every time you complete a challenge, battle or push game a display appears that gives you both the relevant score and time of the game just played but also your hi-score. Furthermore, there is also a leaderboard that lets you know how all this data compares with others who have played the game. In short, it has everything covered here.

CONCLUSION
This is a satisfying match 'em up game that does the usual zap, pop and squelch thing very well. Thankfully, it is not one of those games where you just blindly thrash your way through levels. The way that Clickr raises the bar is in the way it keeps the game dynamic by not only having three decent modes to play (we'll forget about IQ and Multi for now) but in the way it both has meaningful skill levels and records best scores and best times in a reliable and user-friendly way. Due to these factors, it means that it's a game that you can come back to again and again - not just because it's fun but because you actually have meaningful goals to aim for.