Ripten Review: Tidalis

Tidalis is a match-three style puzzler from Arcen Games, in the vein of something like bejeweled. It’s picked up a bit of recognition, however, by making itself stand out from the crowd. Tidalis follows a similar formula to bejeweled, with matching different colored blocks to form combos. This causes more blocks to fall, and might lead to a longer combo.

But that’s about where the similarity ends. Tidalis changes the match-three style puzzler from moving the blocks themselves, to changing the direction on the blocks to create streams. It’s a concept that takes several tutorials and a little playtime to get used to, but once you do it starts to come naturally. You change the direction on the block by right clicking and dragging the mouse in a direction, and set off a stream with a left click. Watching blocks make streams and fall into beautiful combos is satisfying and rewarding, and as you continue to play, it gets easier to do combos with 20-30 blocks.

Of course, that’s just the basics. Blocks continue to fall throughout the game, making the stacks higher. When a stack reaches the top of the screen, it’s game over. There are also many MANY variations on the simple concept, with 19 special gametypes and 21 special blocks, it gets complicated quickly.

And that’s both the good and bad thing with the game. There is a lot of variety to the game with all the special block types and game variants; but it gets hard to keep track of all the special blocks after even hours of gameplay. Some of the variants change the game so much that it’s almost not even the same game. It’s all just a little overwhelming at times.

As for the graphics and sound, they are simple but clean. The graphics aren’t anything special, but they get the job done.  The music gets downright annoying after about five minutes, and I had to mute it. I can almost guarantee you’ll do the same.

In the end, Tidalis is a fun, interesting concept that brings a little variety into the somewhat stale puzzle genre. The core game is simple yet engaging, and is the real reason to keep playing. When the combo that you carefully planned falls into place, and the screen starts cascading downwards, it’s an incredibly rewarding feeling. The sound and music is a minor gripe that’s easily fixed by muting it. If you can’t get enough of bejeweled, then this game is a fun twist on familiar puzzling concepts. If you’re not a puzzle fan, this game doesn’t really bring anything to change your mind.

The Rundown

+ Unique, engaging Gameplay

+ Multiple varied Gametypes keep it interesting

- Repetitive, annoying music

- So many Gametypes, variations, and special blocks that it’s overwhelming

TIDALIS was developed by Arcen Games and was published by Steam. The game released in the United States on July 16th 2010 with a retail price of $9.99. The game was played on several variants and gametypes. TIDALIS was played on a Macbook Pro at a resolution of 1280×800, using a Magic Mouse for control and the built-in speakers for sound.