Jewelanche is a pretty match-3 game by Myrmeleo Games and FR Games. The controls are simple: just use your mouse to click and drag across at least three adjacent gems of the same color to make them disappear, and click once on your powerups to use them. Depending on the level, you will either need to clear a certain number of gems, or clear all the starred gems to pass the board. Your progess is tracked by a jeweled snake on the right side of the screen. If the game board fills with gems, the level ends and you will have to try again.
Clearing gems becomes more difficult as you progress, as you will encounter obstacles such as stones which can't be matched, and frozen jewels which must be matched twice. Luckily there is a gift shop, where a mysterious man with a pipe is always willing to help...for a price, of course. Earn coins as you play (you still get coins even if you don't pass the level) to buy upgrades and powerups in the shop, which are indispensable in later levels. There are pickaxes to break stones and ice, and a mage's glove that allows you to match stones and non-touching gems, among other things. You can also obtain powerups by means of random Pandora's Box gems. But beware! They are just as likely to hurt as they are to help. While the ability to go back to previous easier levels to gain more coinage would have been nice, any fan of match-3 games will enjoy losing themselves in this avalanche of jewels.
Green play button doesn't work, but the first word in the review will take you to the game.
[Fixed. thanks. -Jay]
Hm. The gameplay was entertaining and not too difficult, but it seemed like there were quite a few holes in the coding. After using an item, I think a pickaxe, the next two levels involved random jewels dissolving at a frequent enough rate to trivialize one level (destroy the preset blocks) and make another impossible (standard style with a slow starting fall). In addition, trying to continue game after beating the main mode leads to an empty, non-functioning level 99.
The items frequently failed to perform as the tooltips in the shop claimed. I'm still not entirely sure what the dragon ACTUALLY does, but it's certainly not destroying everything on the level. And the cube sometimes flat-out fails to work, presumably by choosing a color of gem not on the screen.
The levels got more and more gimmicky as they went on, often going from actual puzzles to a simple test of whether you brought the correct items.
That said, I did play it through to completion, and it was a fairly fun game despite the problems above. I'm just somewhat terrible at positive critique.
Is it Kosher?
Hm (sez she several hours later), this seems to strike a precarious balance walking the wire of high difficulty without falling into the abyss of impossibility.
My biggest complaint so far: I haven't found an in-game mute option anywhere. I'd also like to see a pause button.
But it has much more replay value than I expected.
There is both a music mute button and a sfx mute button in the top right corner of the game window. There you will find a pause button as well. :)
@Koro, don't know if it's kosher, but...
there is CAKE.
It's in the stained glass background on the mysterious Level 99 (which you get to by beating the game, then clicking "Continue Game" again when you are taken back to the main screen). Note you can only do this once.
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