Puzzle to the Center of the Earth: a rising star – Preview

I’ll confess, when I heard match-3, I cringed a little. It just seems there are so many crushing candy candidates out there, I wasn’t sure I had it in me to review yet another one. Then I was pleasantly happy to hear it was combined with a platformer. Even if the combo puzzle and platformer is far from being a novel idea, it’s still an interesting take each time.

And that’s where Puzzle to the Center of the Earth hits the jackpot. You will assist a cute little speleologist on his mission to reach the center of the earth. He’s easy enough to control while you dig through colourful pieces of dirt. To dig deeper and deeper, you will need to slide your finger over matching coloured blocks of dirt, a minimum of 3 of them.

I was quickly charmed by the cute art of this game. It’s quite colourful for a game that’s taking place underground and the characters you are controlling are quite endearing. And while the game is very attractive by itself, the 4 brothers development team Foursaken Media isn’t hard on the eye either!

Platformers on iOS are often tricky to pull off because of the virtual controls. But fear not here, it’s highly responsive and the opposite of clunky to use.

But what could lurk in a cave? Treasure of course! You will gather through your adventure various items to assist you. But in the darkness also lurks danger: be wary of mysterious creatures that find you yummy, or dangerous blocks of TNT that could blow you to smithereens.

You’ll quickly find that you can’t quite dig to your heart’s content just yet. Digging is tiresome, it requires a lot of energy. Thankfully, some of those blocks you’ll be mining will contain energy crystals to replenish your stamina to finish your level.

The game was just plain fun to play, I am happy to report. You might get hooked as I was, endlessly trying to finish “just one more level” before putting it down.

Just like Alice, you need to see how far the rabbit hole goes by yourself!