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A Puzzler for the Placid

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I like puzzle games like Tetris EXCEPT I don't like being hurried. I like to contemplate my moves, consider alternate strategies, look deeper into the situation. Most puzzle games have some sort of timer working against you. It might be the falling piece (like Tetris), it might be a time limit to fire your bubble (like spin-jam) or a falling ceiling (like frozen bubble). And, in those puzzle games, it's not unusual to have the time limit become more and more of a problem as the game advances.
That's ok but sometimes I don't want to have a nervous breakdown while having a good time! Marble Master has no time limits.

The basic game play is simple enough. You drop colored marbles into your choice of 8 columns. Match 3 colors horizontally and those marbles (and others of the same color that are connected) blow up and make space for more. Sounds too simple. Heh.
At the bottom of the colums are 4 teeter-totters. Each marble has a weight. As you add marbles to one column you can cause the other column on that teeter-totter to ascend and eject it's top marble sending it flying across the board to land in another column.
At the start of the game there are only a few colors of marbles. As you finish levels different colored marbles start appearing making it harder and harder to make matchups. Ever other level new special marbles appear giving you more ways to solve problems. Some of them are penalty marbles that cause more problems than they solve. And so on and so on.
Other than the order in which the new marbles appear, there are few random elements in the game. So you can plan ahead 2 or more moves.
The clock doesn't work against you BUT if you can pull off your combos quickly you score bonus points.
The controls are super simple. Move left, move right, drop marble.

There's a 2 player option with the normal twist where things you do on your board (eject marbles using the teeter-totters) cause problems for the other player.
There's a mission-mode - blessedly free of any attempt at some lame back story. No need to save the galaxy from the Marble Monster. Just try and get a good score!
You can make a custom game where you adjust most of the variables such as which special marbles appear and on what level they first show up.
You can choose from a variety of marble colors and styles if the default settings are too hard to tell apart. There's even a color scheme for black and white!

Summing up - A fine puzzler for chewing up hours and hours.

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