Tidalis
Platform: PC
Price: $9.99 via Steam

Chaining together combos is the first rule to success in the colorful puzzle game.

Gameplay:

Tidalis is a puzzle game that consists of a rectangle shaped board with different colored squares on it. The goal of the game is to remove the blocks from the board by stringing together combos of like color pieces. Each block has one or two arrows on it and activating the block will send a charge in the direction of the arrow. This charge will travel up to three spaces before it either hits another like colored block or fizzles out. Before activating any blocks you are allowed to aim the arrows in any direction. When blocks are removed, everything is shifted down into those spaces. When blocks come to rest into their new locations, the bottom most block's charge is triggered and this is how combos begin.


A pink combo, 4 pieces deep. On the right side of the screen, in the black box, are the levels requirements. This level requires 2 combos of 20 or more blocks.

The Adventure mode is the most notable addition to the game. Through the 100 or so levels you are required to do all kinds of crazy things in order to complete levels. Sometimes you have to remove 10 green, blue and red blocks while not removing 10 yellows and other times you have to have 2 combos of 20 blocks (see the above image). This mode will slowly introduce new types of blocks, such as ice blocks, which when removed stop all blocks around them from being rotated. While playing I found it tedious to have to keep track of all the different blocks they were adding to the gameplay, a total of about 20 in all. On top of the block types there are different game modes like less gravity where the blocks that are added to the game area fall slower and when the charges emanate off of the blocks, they travel farther. ALSO... there are items, that can remove chunks of blocks, rows, columns, freeze time, ect. All in all, there are so many of these different game modifiers that it's hard to keep track of exactly what is going on during each level.

When playing the Adventure mode it was a welcomed surprise to see there was a cute little story that played along every once in a while in between levels. Being a puzzle game, this isn't something that is required or makes the game complete, but it does add a little more enjoyment into a game that otherwise would have been a bland grind from one level to another.


One of the malevolent characters from the cut-scenes in the adventure mode. You can tell he's malevolent from his shifty eyes...

There is also a Puzzle mode, with boards that take a lot of thought and careful consideration before activating one block. These boards often have move limits and need all of the pieces to be aimed in the correct direction at the beginning. Then with one press of a button, the entire board comes crashing down like one of those amazing domino videos you see on YouTube.

Graphics & Audio:
Graphically speaking, this game is on par with other $10 casual, indie developed, puzzle games. It doesn't test the limits of your video card, but it does do some things you wouldn't have seen in computer games a handful of years ago. The audio is a bit soft, it doesn't do much to get you into the game, it's just there doing its own thing.

Replay value:
The replay value is rather high. There is a custom game option that you can pick whatever options you want. With the dozens of block types, game modes and items, there are thousands of unique game modes.

Overall:
Overall this game is fun for a handful of hours but gets repetitive. It probably would have been a better all if they would have chopped the adventure mode in half and put a little more emphasis into leveling out the difficulty. It seemed to me like there were too many filler levels stretched out in between the ones that really mattered.

Pros:
+Story in a puzzle game
+Lovable characters
+Replay value
+Puzzle mode

Cons:
-Filler levels in Adventure mode
-Bland audio
-Too many gameplay options

Although it was strong out of the gate, Tidalis ends up with a 7/10. At first the game was really fun, but the longer I played the more I tired of the repetitiveness. The occasional addition of new gameplay elements was spread out far too much to keep me fully entertained for the duration of the game.

A review copy was used to evaluate the game.