Explode!
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| Explode!

We're glad we don't have any amateur psychiatrists on the Pocket Gamer team, because if we did we'd be quite worried. You see, we've experienced a preponderance of puzzle games – good ones, at that – all focused on balls. Chuzzle. PileUp! Happy Lines. And now Explode!

Balls, well… let's just say that we haven't completely purged the playground sense of humour from our otherwise grown-up minds.

Added to that the fact that a ball is a circle, a symbol widely known to represent femininity, the goddess and female power, and you'll begin to see why we'll quickly move on and say that whatever it is about these spherical hits, it works. Explode! is another case of taking an existing concept – that of matching similarly coloured objects – and putting a new spin on it.

And spin is the operative word. As coloured balls drop from the top of the screen, they're attracted to the radar in the middle of the screen like a ball bearing to a magnet. Once attached, you can rotate the radar and any associated balls, presenting a different face to subsequent falling balls.

This enables you to control where the balls sit and to build up groups of the same colour. But these groups don't just disappear (or Explode! as the game would have it), oh no. Instead, in a nod to Lumines, they vanish when the radar's beam sweeps over them.

The beam continually rotates on the radar's axis at a steady speed, so you can end up with two or three clumps of similarly-hued balls waiting to disappear.

Of course, building up combos like this rewards you with extra points, and a quicker way of filling the progress bar at the bottom of the screen, which, when full, signals the completion of the level. But let the balls build up too high, passing through the hexagonal border, and you're in trouble, ending the game.

You might think such a speedy exit is an easy hazard to avoid and, to a certain extent, it is. But if you rotate the radar and your collection of balls in the same direction as the beam, you'll stay ahead of its explosive influence and leave primed clumps of balls taking up valuable real estate.

It's a clever little gameplay twist, and means that Explode! can get properly frenetic, especially on the later levels. The presence of special balls that can help or hinder you add complexity as well. Some will freeze the radar beam in its tracks, others will explode with any balls that they come into contact with.

As you play through the main game mode's 12 levels, you'll encounter them all and come to realise that Explode! has borrowed more than one trick from Lumines' box of tricks – as you progress and complete bonus levels, you'll unlock new soundtracks, including chillout, rock, jazz and so on.

That sounds more impressive than it really is, but it shows that a little bit more thought than usual has gone into making Explode! a game that you'll want to return to time and time again. The different modes of play add longevity, with Timed, Puzzle (where you need to clear all the balls from the radar) and Freeplay variants on offer when the initial dozen stages (which present little more than a warm-up) have been disposed of.

The bright, coloured backgrounds add a final polish (one that not even the 'enthusiastic' approach to grammar taken by the game's instructions can tarnish) to what's a most welcome addition to the puzzle game canon. It's not up there with Chuzzle, that's for sure (something we're glad of; there's enough fodder for Freud without adding fur to the mix), but Explode! does offer something new that's genuinely enjoyable and worth finding time for.

Explode!

A good idea, well executed, that offers something fresh in a crowded puzzle catalogue
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