Review: Sparkle

One of my favorite PC games is Luxor, a color matching, shoot’em up, strategy game that is also known as ‘marble poppers’. With the latest webOS update allowing us to run PDK apps we now have beautiful, high powered games on our mobile phones. One of those games we are reviewing today is Sparkle that is available in Palm’s App Catalog for $3.00.

Sparkle is developed by 10tons Ltd. and utilizes the webOS PDK model. The game features a simple fantasy story line where the player must complete different levels to save Crowberry Woods, an enchanted forest that has been taken over by darkness and needs a hero to save it. The player starts on a map and work their way through the map to each important monument to unlock secrets, new game modes, bonuses and achievements.

The object of the game is to shoot your colored marbles (a.k.a. orbs) into the train of marbles and match three or more colors to remove them from the train. The more marbles you pop, the more points and achievements you’ll receive. As you remove more marbles the shooter will start to receive runes, the player must collect all the runes that are located around shooter to complete the level. Once all the runes are lit, the level will complete as soon as all marbles are popped off the track.

As the train of marbles reaches the end of the line it’s game over and you lose a life. To help you defeat the train of marbles, you will gain special abilities and power-ups to aid you. For example, there are power-ups where the marbles will rearrange themselves to be more organized making it easier to pop a large color group and rack up bigger points. Another power-up is a meteor shower where meteors rain down and pops as many marbles possible. In addition to these power-ups are amulets that the player can enable for extended abilities to complete each level. The amulets will never expire, but the player can only wear one amulet at a time. Some amulets abilities will allow the player to shoot faster, have power ups fall closer to you or only receive specific power-ups. Using the power-ups are visually rewarding and the player will constantly receive power-ups throughout the game.

There are three different types of game modes: Quest, Survival and Challenge. Quest will have you play through the story, Challenge will allow you to play each level and record your results and Survival where the game never ends until you lose. Each level will have a unique trail where the marbles roll through. Your marble shooter will be placed in a certain area where it can get challenging; for example, if the trail has a zig-zag pattern you can hit the marbles in the front, but none in the back. If you manage to create a gap in the train, you may be able to shoot through it and reach other parts of the train that is not easily accessible.

The controls are simple enough to play without feeling too frustrated by tapping the screen where you want your marble to shoot. Accuracy is an important key to this game if you want to be quick and efficient. Players can accidentally shoot marbles into the wrong part of the train, it’s understandable that players may have large fingers that will be difficult to tap and aim if you’re tapping in the right area. I too have thick fingers, but after time you will get used to it.

The game is very smooth and it visually looks great! It exudes polish and bests other games of this ilk (like Cronk) in terms of the overall gaming experience and replay value. The game’s actions and sounds are very satisfying and entertaining, with the special effects and abilities the game encourages the player to continue. The music fits the theme well, but is repeated in many of the levels. Luckily the music isn’t too annoying or nagging where players will want to mute it.

I haven’t found much that is technically wrong, but I was a bit disappointed to not find an online leadership board for each of the game modes. As I mentioned earlier, this game received a lot of polish and definitely delivers for the $3.00 price tag. There may not be as many levels to last you a long time, but the challenges and game modes will offer enough replay value to continue playing for better scores. Unfortunately there are no trial versions, but you can go to 10Tons website and download the desktop version of the application. Impressively the mobile game looks identical to the desktop version and the demo will allow you to play for an hour.

So take a look at the site and see for yourself, I definitely recommend the app for people who love these action-puzzle games with flashy visuals and quality sounds.