Review: Five Or More

I like a good puzzle game as much as the next guy. Don’t get me wrong, I like the flashy, 3D stuff, but a straight up puzzle with simple gameplay brings a smile to my face too. Five or More by Code of Doom ($1.00 in the App Catalog) reminds me of a Bejeweled style game, but without the flash and gloss that Bejeweled is known for.

The object of Five or More is to line up five or more of the same color dots on the screen. Once that’s done, the dots disappear freeing up the spaces for you to move more dots around. The more spaces you clear, the higher your score. The tricky part is each time you move a piece, three additional pieces appear on the board. The game play gets a little tougher as your empty spaces fill up and you run out of room to line up your colors. Once the board is filled, the game is over.

You can line up the colored dots horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. There are rules as to how you are allowed to move your piece: It can move up, down, left, right, you can’t jump over other pieces, and you can’t move diagonal if one or more pieces are in your way. I’m not entirely crazy about the color choices of red, green, and blue. After staring at a board of forty nine colored dots, things seem to blend together! Still, the pieces are easy to select and move around.

I found myself getting a little frustrated at times while playing the game. Whatever strategy you devise while moving dots around can get thrown out the window as new pieces fall in to place around the board. Every game lasted no more than a couple of minutes, which makes for quick play. There are no levels and the only goal here is to beat your last high score. I did find the high score system to be a bit on the screwy side since it showed four different high scores of the same number. That being said, Five or More makes for a decent time waster if you don’t mind the simple game play.

Interested? Go here to download Five Or More directly to your device!