The premise of SpinBlocks is your usual 3 in a row block matching affair, but in the center is a circle surrounded by blocks that have to be destroyed by matching. You can do this by rotating the center section 90 degrees at a time and moving two ‘launchers’ left and right across the top and bottom of the screen, which take turns in firing colored blocks into the center. That’s the meat and potatoes of the game; Â there are also time limits, combos, difficulty settings and a puzzle mode but your enjoyment on this game is solidly based on how much this style of game appeals to you.
Easier settings give you gracious time limits and a small variety of colored blocks.
A lot of games with these simple styles make up for it with heavy graphical effects that thump to a heavy beating tune, but here there are no bright neon glows or flashy particle effects around to bog down slower systems. Conversely, the graphics, while clean, do feel sparse. It would be nice to see some additional graphic options for the higher powered or higher resolution systems.
Settings are limited, but it’s always good to see a colorblind mode available.
The biggest issue with SpinBlocks is the controls, a single tap or a swipe in the center rotates the center cube and a tap on the arrows or a swipe at the top or bottom moves the launchers while tapping on them fires them early. This sounds okay in theory, but it can get very clumsy. Swiping at the top or bottom of the screen isn’t very precise, and if you click on an arrow next to a launcher, you’re going to move it under your finger where a second tap might fire it prematurely. The game feels like it wants to be fast paced, but the inaccurate controls hold it back, perhaps adding movement controls to the corner of the screen and a dial like rotation for the center would resolve this, but as it is, SpinBlocks can be a tad too frustrating at higher settings when you’re constantly pressed for time.
The toughest setting offers a real challenge.
SpinBlocks succeeds at being a fun game to pick up and play for five minutes here or there, but you should check out the free demo on the marketplace before buying, the control issues might be just a little too much to bear.
Application name: SpinBlocks
Published by: Memeworks
Price: $1.99
SpinBlocks can be purchased from Android Market HERE
