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jp's 7 Wonders: Treasures of Seven (DS)
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| [January 11, 2021 06:39:01 PM]
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Yeah, there really is a difference between "well-produced" match-3 games and those that aren't.
I decided to play until I was 50% done. The game hasn't changed at all (not complaining) so I figure there won't be more changes (e.g. new gameplay) to come and I feel like I understand it enough.
I am super curious about one thing though - so there's a powerup that's a dice. When you do a swap with it, it explodes and takes out a random bunch of tiles. So, it's useful for last minute desperate moves. HOWEVER, I noticed that it always knocks out one tile beneath the "object" you're trying to move to the end-point in the 2nd phase of each level. This was super useful, as a player, and it made me wonder what sorts of things might be going on under the hood to affect the randomness. Here I'd guess it's random except for one tile always beneath the object - but are there more moments of designed-not-really-randomness?
I did enjoy the 2nd phase of the game much more than the first - and the board rotation was undoubtedly more interesting than I first gave it credit (in terms of stragy and such). I also loosened up and was much more freewheeling with my use of the line-clearing power ups. The board rotation ends up solving a lot of the strategy challenges in regular match-3 maps in an interesting way...
...so, when I play a match-3 where you have to clear the background (by matching on top of it) I find it's usually the smarter/more efficient choice to try to make as many matches as possible at the bottom of the level because you will often get "lucky" matches as new pieces fall in automatically. This gets more tiring the longer you play because you're focused on one way of clearing a tile with no real options other than try to match elsewhere and then hopefully "migrate" those match options closer to where you really want them to happen. However, on the rotating board this isn't a problem anymore since you change where the bottom is (and from where new tiles will drop). So, you can focus on one area, but then rotate to create new opportunities for fresh pieces to drop in from another direction. I'm not sure how to describe it all entirely - but it's definitely a more interesting play experience with less "now I'm stuck" feelings... At least in my experience with the first 50% of the game...
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| [January 4, 2021 10:17:21 AM]
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I've really enjoyed this so far! It FEELS good to play - which is unusual in the context that it's a match-3 game, and I've played a few of those over the last few weeks. This is by far the one that FEELS the best. I think it's partly responsiveness of the controls but also strongly due to the audio and animation. Then the blocks "explode" there's a little delay that just makes it feel more impactful - but I think it's only when you make a match, rather than when you trigger a chain.
I've only played 10 levels or so...(10% of the game according to its own stats) - so perhaps this good feeling will disappear once I start failing at levels or they become more annoyingly hard? I hope not...I mean, a bit harder wouldn't be a bad thing, but frustratingly so - not so much. We'll see. There is a timer, which I don't like - but I've had no problems with it so far. We'll see what happens as the difficulty ramps up.
I've also enjoyed the powerups you get when you match 4 or 5. They let you clear an entire row or an entire row+column.
Oh, perhaps the most interesting thing is that once you clear the background tiles a special piece appears and you have to "move it along" to a specific place (it's bounded, so you can't really mess up THAT much) by clearing tiles beneath it (to make the special piece drop). You can also rotate the board so that the special tile drops in the direction you want it. It's a neat "end of match" special goal that I've enjoyed playing with.
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jp's 7 Wonders: Treasures of Seven (DS)
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Current Status: Stopped playing - Got Bored
GameLog started on: Sunday 3 January, 2021
GameLog closed on: Monday 11 January, 2021 |
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This is the only GameLog for 7 Wonders: Treasures of Seven. |
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