Jelly Love

Match-three games have us pairing up everything from gems to rocks to smiley faces. We even make sets of animals, which feels a bit like role-playing as Noah after a blow to the head ('You said three of every creature, right?')

Chillingo's Jelly Love doesn't go anywhere weird with its game pieces, which are basically chunks of soft, chewy candy. In fact, the whole experience is pretty tame and forgettable - unless you're seriously in love with match-three games.

Jelly Love is easy enough to sink your teeth into. You move individual game pieces around the board and make matches of three or more same-coloured jellies.

The matches can be horizontal, vertical, or in an 'L' or 'T' shape. When you make a match, the pieces vanish and more rush in from the top. The idea is to make as many matches as possible before your time runs out.

If you make a match of five or more, you receive a 'candy bomb', which turns about a quarter of the board into a checkered pattern containing two specific colours of jellies. This makes it easy to flick a few quick matches and pump up your score before the last seconds tick down.

If you make a bunch of matches at a good pace, you can trigger a 'jelly rush', which lets you tap at falling jellies for big points.

As might be expected, you can also increase your score by using one of several power-ups. There's a 'sour power' bomb, for instance, which automatically clears away a bunch of game pieces. There's also a power-up that extends your time limit.

Power-ups are bought before a round using candy. Candy appears on the game board as you play, and you tap the pieces to collect them. Unsurprisingly, power-ups are expensive and you shouldn't expect to harvest a lot of candy without repeated playthroughs.

Alas, Jelly Love's life/energy system makes it a bit difficult to play repeatedly. The average match lasts seconds, and each one takes up one of five lives. Lives are restored over time, though you can buy instant refills and/or bug your pals for more over Facebook.

In other words, if you don't pay up or resort to Facebook, you can expect to play Jelly Love for about five minutes at a time.

Jelly Love has another, potentially more troubling problem: many of its game-pieces are similar in hue. As you might imagine, it's not hard to mistake a pink piece for a red or orange one, especially if your eyesight isn't hot.

To the game's credit, all the jelly pieces boast adorable facial expressions (yes, jelly with facial expressions. Maybe Jelly Love's game pieces aren't so typical after all). Otherwise, Jelly Love is pretty plain-looking. There isn't much in the way of acoustic accompaniment either, other than some joyful shouts and giggles from the game pieces.

Jelly Love isn't a terrible game - it's just a typical match-three title. It might be worth a play, but only if you're sweet on the genre and you don't mind short playing sessions.