Tidalis

I am bad at puzzle games. I admit it; there’s no shame in it. Well, maybe a little shame. Still, my incompetence at puzzle games continues to astound me. I never got farther than the first area in Puzzle Quest because I sucked at combat, and it only had simple match-3 puzzles.

Tidalis hurts my brain. The puzzle consists of a grid of colored blocks, except each colored block also has an arrow on it. The arrow can be rotated to point in any direction. When you click on a block, you send off a spark wherever that block’s arrow is pointing. The spark can travel up to 3 spaces before disappearing, but if it meets another block of the same color, it will send off another spark in that block’s arrow direction. When you chain together 3 or more blocks, they disappear. When the blocks on top of the newly removed blocks fall down, they emit a spark as well. The goal is to chain together sparks and eliminate as many blocks as possible at once.

I say, “the goal,” but in reality Tidalis has several dozen different gameplay modes that have timed blocks falling from the ceiling, or a timer on the level, or various goals to meet. There’s even cooperative multiplayer, as well as adversarial (versus) multiplayer. Every mode you can think of including in a puzzle game, Tidalis has it. It even has a story mode complete with cutscenes.

Tidalis’s core gameplay is the important thing to keep in mind, and it’s addictive as well as unique. Almost too often I’ve found myself staring at the multicolored grid, desperately trying to search for the next combo.

Why You Should Check This Out: Tidalis is a puzzle game with a simple but unique concept and addictive gameplay. It also includes every gameplay mode under the sun, from multiplayer to story mode. There’s hours and hours of gameplay here, which is good because every time I play I get just a little more hooked.

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