Appy Christmas!
Christmas! It’s nearly upon us once again so to get us in the festive spirit and in the mood for all that food, drink and general silliness, today we’re taking a look at Dynamate Christmas Edition from Christchurch-based developer Ivan Mackintosh. Is it a Christmas cracker, or an old turkey? Read on to find out!
The weather outside is frightful
Dynamate Christmas Edition is a puzzler based on a tried and tested format, and spruced up with a sprinkling of Christmas magic. Fans of Boulder Dash will be familiar with the way this game works: the playing area is divided up in grid-like fashion and populated with obtacles, items and bonuses.
Think, Rudolph, think!
The items (in this case coloured gems) can only be moved in straight lines, horizontally or vertically, and must be strategically manipulated so that particular colours hit into others, thereby making them disappear. To make things more interesting, bonus items that change the colour of your gems or change the course of their movement are scattered around, as are hazards such as holly that will immediately cause the game to be lost if touched.
Get a clue
Before the game starts, three pages of hints are available that explain the various rules and abilities of each item – you’ll need to memorise these or write them down as unfortunately there is no access to these pages from within the game.
Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?
The levels start out modestly challenging and quickly ramp up the pressure to pretty darn difficult! Thankfully help is at hand by tapping on Rudolph – he will give you advice that sometimes tells you exactly what to do and sometimes gives you just a helpful pointer. There’s no penalty for using this feature which is welcome relief when you’re stuck.
The game lets you choose which level to play, whether you’ve completed it previously or not. Personally I love this — too often do I suddenly hit a ‘wall’ in a game where I can’t complete a level and as a result just lose interest in the whole thing and delete the app. With Dynamate you can just skip levels like this. You can also have as many goes / restarts as you like. Perfect.
Some clues are more cryptic than others...
Graphically, this app is very charming – it’s colourful and playful with great cartoon-style images that wouldn’t look out of place on a pack of Christmas Cards. Snow falls on the main screen and even the fonts are festive! Sound is quite scarce, however, with just a few incidental sound effects but no music — some cheesey Christmas music would add to the atmosphere nicely!
Controls are a little tricky — to move an object one must tap the required item (which are smaller than the individual keys on the iPhone keyboard) and then swipe up, down, left or right. I find the swiping to be a little hit-or-miss — swipes are not always registered for some reason, which at first had me stumped on a few levels and left me thinking that some objects must not be able to move in certain directions before I realised that no, my swipes just weren’t being registered. I found a reboot fixed the problem initially but then came back again.
I have to say that despite not being a massive fan of this genre I really enjoy playing Dynamate Christmas Edition. The levels are interesting enough to keep me coming back and the ones that aren’t can be skipped. I’m also a bit of a sucker for Christmas things so this is a welcome edition to my iPhone indeed. At $1.29 you can’t go wrong.
– Dynamate Christmas Edition
– Dynamte (original, non-Christmas edition)
Do you have any Christmas app treats to share? Hit us up in the comments with your suggestions
