Pebble Universe: Physics based puzzler with a difference
Life is sweet for a pebble. They bask in the sun of the flower beds, farming the beautiful floral plants in peace and happiness with little to worry about. That is until the terrible soot monsters have come to feed on their meaty insides, equipped with special x-ray eyes, they are able to pick out the juicy pebbles from the ordinary ones. What will the defenceless pacifistic pebbles do to save themselves? Read on to find out.
It turns out these pebbles are not your average turtle like rock creatures but their hard exteriors are laden with explosives allowing they to bump into each other, shattering their shells and sending the broken pieces into the air like missiles. With this, the pebbles have a way of protecting themselves against the threat of extinction. How lucky!
The game play is centred on this improbable and equally strange defence mechanism. Levels are laid out with soot monsters patrolling the skies and with the strategically distributed pebbles down below. The aim is to tap on the pebbles to set them rolling towards each other so that they impact directly below the soot monsters. Timing is key, if you are successful, you can clear the screen of the pesky black carbon nasties with just two pebbles, leaving you with additional points for each pebble you didn’t use.
The soot monsters meet their demise after propelling their overly large eyeballs in the air allowing you to chain your move by hitting other soot monsters. As the levels go by, you are introduced to different types of pebbles. including big pebbles that provide a larger spread of debris and special shrapnel pebbles to propel the missiles directly upwards.
As different and refreshing as Pebble Universe is, the gameplay is hard. It’s often not immediately obvious on what you need to do to complete the level with the minimum pebbles and it can take a lot of trail and error in order to find that perfect solution. It suffers in the same way as the original Angry birds in that it’s not as much about skill as about luck at times.
Gameplay flaws aside, the presentation of Pebble Universe is super cute and entertaining enough that it will allow you to see past these relatively minor points. With 50 levels to get through, 6 unlockable bonus levels and the promise offuture additional levels, this interesting take on the physics puzzler should give some decent milage.
Verdict 3.5/5 Immensely cute and fun character and world designs wrapped up an in an interesting and refreshing take on the tried and tested physics puzzle genre. The seemingly luck based nature of the levels may frustrate all but the very patient gamers out there.
Developers: Itatake.com
Pebble Universe Promotional Youtube Video
Pebble Universe QR Code
(Click on the image or scan the barcode with your Android phone to goto Google Play)
