Lubaja

Just when we thought there was no other way of matching up three similarly coloured icons: Lubaja.

We’re not really sure what the name means, though it’s really not obliged to mean anything. It does somehow seem to fit in with the subtly gothic (lite goth, shall we call it?) design that this simplistic puzzler is adorned with, which is ultimately no bad thing.

For all the match three mobile games we’ve seen over the years, it seems it’s still difficult to completely tire of them. Like its brethren, Lubaja makes up for an essential lack of originality by providing you with the kind of game that’s immensely easy to play using the limited controls of the mobile keypad.

It's played on a circular game field. A ring of circular holes surround a central point, which is where your icons - to be eliminated - spawn from. This ring of holes rotates at a fairly steady, constant pace that you can change the direction of by pressing ‘5’.

Some of the holes will already be filled with coloured balls, and by pressing up, down, left and right you shoot the ball at the centre out into the rotating ring, aiming to place it in a hole alongside similarly coloured icons.

There’s a brief delay in the central ball when you shoot it, however, which, although there’s no real purpose to that delay, adds a requirement for a little extra considered accuracy in your shots.

Should a ball miss, and hit a hole that’s already occupied, it’ll sit there and wait for the next available hole to come along. Of course, this won’t necessarily be alongside the right coloured ball, so you may have to change the rotational direction of the ring to get the ball where you originally wanted it.

Leave one sat there too long, however, and it’s removed from play automatically. If three balls are lost in this manner, or the timer runs out, it’s game over.

It sounds a little complicated in explanation, but other than figuring out the rules of the three different game modes (which isn’t easily achieved by reading the instructions), it’s a very recognisable mechanic that you’ll suss out almost immediately.

These game modes include filling up the ring by aligning the coloured balls, eliminating all balls from the ring by matching sets of three, and a more unusual method of play that involves shooting balls of the same colour to remove them immediately.

Where the fault lies with Lubaja is in its presentation and imagination. True enough, there’s little else that can be achieved with this prolific gameplay style, but that shouldn’t stop the developer making an effort to add a little dynamism to the action.

Even Pac-Man has had a more exciting update recently, so no game has much of an excuse for offering the bare minimum.

Much of the screen goes unused, with just your rotating circle in the centre, and while the music is actually very toe tapping (in a sort of pseudo, futuristic reggae kind of way), it’s only about 30 seconds long and repeats enough to try the patience of a bird watcher.

Lubaja is decent enough at what it does, but what it does is very little. The whole production smacks of lack of effort. It's got its share of addictiveness in the beginning, but is almost impossible to get excited about. As a mini-game in a much more motivated title it’d be a very decent freebie, but it lacks the depth for a standalone game.