Angkor: Celebrations - Match 3 Puzzle

A fun variant of the match three genre. The story is that you are collecting items for some ritual, but it is really only a conceit to give the game a theme. It does that well enough though. The art is nice much of the time, though the quality varies. I find the music quite pleasant, but you can turn it off if it bugs you. There are a variety of levels of difficulty to suit your taste. You can give yourself a time deadline or a move deadline depending on your style. There are a variety of odd things you have to do to move ahead, some common, like 'match the piece that is locked in place' or 'match next to a piece to cause an effect.' There re also squares you need to match multiple times to finally get it to count as clear. One thing I do like is often you only get the result if the match is the result of your action rather than the random result of falling colors. Not always, but enough to make things feel less accidental. Every once in awhile a different kind of puzzle pops up. I get the impression you can skip these, but so far I have simply done them. The three types are a simple jigsaw, one where you have to connect the pipes (which is fun enough, but seems well out of character to the theme of the game) and a sliding puzzle to remove one of the pieces which is usually in the form of cars and trucks in a parking lot, but here they are just slats of bamboo. Nice to mix things up. The only thing I notice missing is the chance to re-try a level if you want to get a better ending. (You earn one to three stars based on something, your score I think) and I have yet to see a screen showing all of your levels so you can go back. The stars don't seem to add up to anything yet, so it doesn't seem like a big deal. All in all a fun game, an easy thumbs up. ADDENDUM: 9.3 hours of play start to finish. Not too shabby, and I feel like it has some replayability. Only found one totally broken level, but it was skippable, and one partially broken level that I found a work around for. EDIT: I've put a lot of hours in to this now, and am most of the way through my third time, lots of replayability. ADDENDUM: Closing in on one hundred hours, and I really find this game keeps me coming back. I think the best part about it for me is the fact that many things you do only work if it was the result of an intentional switch by you. Too many match-3 games, random-ish chance creates power ups and such and do too much of the work. This is a nice mix of helpful drops and requiring thought and effort. Plus I can skip over the filler levels. I enjoyed playing them the first time thru, but now all I want is the match-3. I wish there was a random level maker or something, but I still enjoy going thru the same eighty or so levels levels over and over. ADDENDUM: Not for completionists, not all of the achievements seem to work.

TL:DR If you care about achievements don't buy this game- cheevs are broken. If you don't care about achievements- wait for a $0.49 sale, it is a mediocre game at best, with dated visuals and some game bugs. Game and achievements seem broken. Still playable for the zen of it, but barely a passable play experience. Bombs (needed for achievement) aren't made in game when conditions are met. Level 64?, a jigsaw puzzle, produces invisible pieces - no way to finish it. Sometimes the mechanics needed to progress a level don't work, requiring exiting the level and starting again. Some achievements show in game but not on Steam. Some achievements don't pop in game or on Steam. Memory cards game levels are ok. Connect the tubes game levels are ok also, the most fun part of the game imo- too bad there are so few. Free the block (Traffic/sokoban kind of gameplay) is ok, kind of easy solutions. Music is the same bit repeated again and again; surprisingly, not as annoying as that sounds.

The gameplay is more entertaining than the Tower series because you get line-clearing arrows which actually break through obstacles. I also liked the story and the different sets of playing tiles which appear as you progress (wish there were an option to choose a tile set to use throughout the whole game as some are easier on the eyes than others). Nice looking backgrounds which change to go along with the story. The soundtrack was not to my taste at all; quickly shut the music off. Not super hard to play if you're good at making arrows with bigger matches, even expert limited moves mode was pretty easy for me most of the time. But the reason why I can't recommend this game is because it's rather buggy. The jigsaw puzzle at level 64 is impossible to complete because the pieces are invisible, and a couple of M3 levels late in the game had small issues where if you do the wrong thing, the weight which is supposed to land on the bomb to trip it instead goes somewhere else, rending the level impossible. Several of the in-game and Steam trophies do not work at all, probably because the in-game trophy page was obviously copied from another game and some of the trophies don't apply to this game. I am wondering if a newer build was put out sometime after the initial release, as some players do have trophies which I find impossible to achieve, but I bought the game after the fact. It certainly has potential, but isn't worth full price. Glad I got it as part of a bundle at a good discount. I'm going to keep going for a while longer as I think there's one more trophy I can unlock, but will retire the game after that. Too bad the developer didn't work all the kinks out, or else the game was not adequately beta tested before release.

The problem of this game is that everything about it is OK yet nothing is really good. The story, the visuals, the gameplay, the music, the colors... everything. Colors are not well picked - who wants brown jewel? OK there can be certain uniqueness but then the tones of the colors are cheap, should be better, and details better finished. The resolution is high yet details missing. There is certain cheapness. The music is very limited, only something like three songs, partially annoying and partially good. The obstacles and special features and stones are not as attractive, as amusing, possibly even annoying. The challenge is not so pleasant. What is important - it is not self-evident what they are and how they function, which is pity. The result impression lacks cleanliness and the player lacks feeling of clarity. It's far from smooth, juicy, intuitive or really fun as the classics like Bejeweled are. Everything is OK but not awesome and not really snapping together, not clicking in your brain, not forming the fun. Probably most important is - and it's hard to explain why - the controls do not feel good, playing with the jewels feels somehow strange as if there was some delay in response to my actions. That really pushes you away from playing it. Like bun that is hard to chew, shoes that are getting stuck on the floor or speech with stuttering. I started to like one of the songs yet it would need a build up after a while, using more instruments, going with more energy. While looking at the promotion and discounts I again thought of buying all of the games (I am so big fan of this kind of games), in practice I struggle to finish even this one. Everything seems almost great in the presentation but then everything is so "meh" when playing, far from great. If the developer would be willing to improve the game or future games, I would be willing to cooperate and help perfect it. Success needs perfection, not just having everything OK and one or two steps from the desired effect and actual joy. It's really hard to explain why something seems technically and theoretically alright but then you don't enjoy playing it. It's like fake coke or buying hamburger that has all it needs - quality bun, quality meat, cucumbers, tomatoes, onion and lettuce - yet you don't enjoy it. It feels like cheap impostor. Resembles what you love but is far from it at the same time. The positive thing is I didn't notice any bugs.

Gameplay is fine but, compared to other Match 3 games, it's very short. I finished this in 14 hours. It never tells you what level you're on, so I have no idea how many levels the game offers. When you click 'More Games' on the main screen, it takes you to a store web page.