Fluttabyes

Developer: Red Chain
Steam Release: Apr 2010
Hours Played: 1
Similar To: Bejeweled 3 / Jewel Venture / Ricky Raccoon /
Rating: N/A



GAMEPLAY
This sugary sweet, cutesy little match 3 game is not what a forty-something geezer should be playing. Housewives and little children off school maybe but not yours truly. It's a bright, cuddly and fluffy game that does little to stretch the brain but everything to waste your time. You begin with a 10x10 grid filled with five different coloured butterflies. On the right, a never-ending line of four butterflies are lined up on a twig indicating the order in which they are to be placed. Your cursor is a butterfly which must be placed directly on the grid the idea being to get a minimum of four of the same colour in a line. When this occurs a light and fluttery animation appears as the said butterflies delicately flutter away. The grid then cascades down to be replaced by more butterflies. 
 


BALANCE & PACE
The dandelion on the left operates as a timer and counts down the time left. When the dandelion fully blows away, it's game over. As you play you may get five or more in a row, link two rows of the same colour at once or get combos Jewel-Quest style as the grid cascades downwards and more butterflies get replenished. In this case you either get a score-bonus or a time-bonus whereby the dandelion gets filled up a little. There are two modes: Survival mode, where you have the time-pressure mentioned above, or Endless mode where you endlessly place butterflies with no time-pressure. Unfortunately, the game is as boring as it sounds. With zero dynamic modes included to jazz the game up it is essentially a one-trick pony that gets old very quickly; make as many lines of four as you can - that's it! Thank you and goodnight. 


PRESENTATION & DESIGN
The game is very bright and colourful - I'll give it that, and this positivity brings with it a very cheerful vibe. Animations are breezy and satisfying and this does make the experience absorbing up to a point. It all revolves around many light and delicate things floating and flapping around. Sound, on the other hand, is mainly dominated by the enthusiastic voice-over of a young child who announces your combos and multi-way moves with joy and elation. The music throughout, a light and melodic galloping number with an African rhythm and a Disneyfied twist again adds to that sugary-sweet coating. Everything about this game centres around cuteness from the child narrator at the main screen who announces cheerily, "Welcome to Fluttabyes" to the chirpy tune tinkering away in the background as butterflies of gentle, pastel colours flutter happily in the sunshine. 


PROGRESS SYSTEM
The main screen is a simple, no-nonsense hub that takes you directly to where you want to go. The High-Score chart shows your one highest score amongst the other players online and there is a Tutorial option to peruse if you so wish. On pressing Play you choose Survival or Endless mode and it's away you go! Endless mode is a waste of time while Survival mode seems luck-based. Still, your best score is stored and placed on a leaderboard with other online players so at least there is something to aim for. Nevertheless, I think I would liked to have seen the game store your own Top 10 scores so that you can at least gauge how well you've done and have more meaningful scores to beat rather than just your own top score. The amount of butterflies rescued is shown at the end of a game but this, along with total time of each game, could also have been stored on a stats page to give the game an extra dimension.

CONCLUSION
With just one half-decent game-mode included and essentially just one generic game to play, Fluttabyes - rather than lifting us up and giving us wings - shuffles us along quietly in a pedestrian manner making us go nowhere in particular. Mildly pleasant animations work to some degree in making this a half-decent match 3 but the game just needs a whole lot more for it to be the full-rounded package.