Blog - Coloris

Coloris

Since I finished Dialhex and also managed over 200 hexes in the endless mode (getting me a "Fantastic!"), I decided to put that one aside and get another bit Generations game. This time I chose Coloris, also a puzzle game that resembles Tetris at first sight. While there's no background music, all sound was done by Oyamada Keigo (Cornelius) and it sounds good!

In this game, each level represents one board of a certain size and of which the "panels" are of a certain number of colors. When three or more panels adjacent horizontally or vertically are of a same color, they disappear and panels on top fall down, and new panels appear from the top so the screen is always full of panels.
A panel's color can be changed by positioning the cursor on it and hitting "A". This shifts the color towards the cursor's color, while this one's color keeps changing as often as everytime you hit "A".

For example, the first level is rather small and only has four colors: yellow, pale orange, dark orange and red. When your cursor is yellow, positioning over a red panel and hitting "A" will change its color to dark orange.
After clearing an unknown number of panels, the level is suddenly cleared. The game is saved at every level, and you can always continue to a level you've cleared before.

Sounds easy enough, but there's a twist. Panels can "die", or turn gray, and when a panel is dead it can't be cleared easily anymore, and it stays at its place without ever falling down. If the screen is filled with gray panels, the game is over.
A panel dies if you don't clear it within a certain amount of time, but also if you try to change it to an unrelated color. For example in some further levels you'll have a set of colors such as [yellow], orange, [red], purple, [blue], green (this series loops back to yellow), and the cursor only turns to colors with brackets (yellow, red, blue). Trying to change the color of an orange panel while having a blue cursor will kill the panel instantly. So as the color sets get complex with a dozen of colors, you have to be very careful while always paying attention to the cursor's current color.

There are a few other twists... A dead panel can be cleared by clearing an adjacent panel twice. Some panels come with a "X" mark, clearing one of those will clear all of the board's panels located diagonally (even gray ones). Other panels come with a square mark, those can clear all panels of the same color found on the board. Those square mark panels keep their square mark even if they turn gray, and they can then be used to zap away all dead panels. Also, the panel lifespan seems to get shorter when you get to higher levels (which are also larger, making it harder to keep clearing panels all over the board).

It may sound like quite a lot of rules, but it's really easier than it sounds. Actually, after only a few hours of play I feel like I've got quite far in the game (13 basic levels cleared), and have yet to lose at all. I'm afraid I'll clear the whole game within a few days, if I keep playing at this pace. Anyway there's also an "advanced" series where panels have odd designs and boards have a background image (gotta love the sakura one!), and there's also a "score mode" which is probably equivalent to DialHex' endless mode. Hopefully I can keep myself busy for a while!

Posted on August 16, 2006 at 12:08 | Tweet |

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