[b]gems of magic: father's day[/b] is the second game in the series, even though it's set in the real world and features a father-son duo, while [url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/dohi64/recommended/970030]the first one[/url] took place in a fantasy land inhabited by furballs. it was also among the worst match-3 titles I've played, which is true for graphium studio's other match-3 offerings as well, but ever the optimist, I decided to try this too. fourth time's the charm, right?
not when [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2686588815]the game doesn't even start properly[/url], had to switch languages back and forth for the english text to appear. and while there are separate sliders for music and sound, [b]clicking the credits or info button in the options sometimes resets volumes to maximum[/b]. besides various language there's a game cursor and that's it, [b]no windowed mode[/b], alt+enter only makes a full size non-resizable window, so it's useless.
their [url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/dohi64/recommended/1744790]second piratey match-3[/url], which came out on the same day as this, was the first to finally introduce different game modes and do away with the mandatory move limit, and [b]relax mode[/b] is available here as well when creating a new profile. it gets rid of move and time limits, which is my preference.
the story is... oh man... it's father's day, so the boys go camping without mom. dad manages to fall over a trunk, down the mountain, into the river, and the whole game is about his trek to the top, back to his son. [b]fonts and speech bubbles look horrendous[/b] and I'm not sure why [b]the same text has to appear twice on every screen in cutscenes[/b], once inside the bubble and on the bottom as subtitles. and they must've been typed twice because one screen has a typo only in one instance of the same sentence.
anyway, [b]100 levels[/b] unlocked one by one, 3-star rating based on score, very few coins as reward, and various goals. reaching a number of points, removing sand, etc. [b]sand is a really bad joke[/b] btw, there are tiles under it but you don't know what they are, so [b]blind matching until something happens[/b]. and you also have to [b]make sure dad reaches the top of the board on every level[/b]. it's the opposite of the well-known 'drop things on the bottom' mechanic I hate so much, and dad can't be swapped with other tiles. the level doesn't end once he's on top, you can continue matching towards the other goals, but [b]no restart level button[/b], have to go back to level select first.
the more you match of the same color, the better [b]power-up[/b] is created, which then has to be swapped to trigger and it'll get rid of a bunch of tiles. combine two for an even bigger bang. [b]coins are used to buy further helpers while playing a level.[/b] all 4 are unlocked from the start and cost the same, which is really weird. there are no tooltips and clicking them brings up the same ugly shop screen where you can buy 3, 5 or 10 for 5, 6 or 11 coins.
[b]money is not exactly pouring in[/b] but I was sure I wouldn't finish this dumpster fire either, so I tried them out of curiosity, since the help section doesn't mention them. the compass adds extra moves, the finger switches any two tiles whether the result is a match or not, the wind whatever changes the color of a few tiles and the bomb is a bomb. it destroys one (1!) whole regular tile...
the board shuffles if there are no more matches, cascades also create power-ups, but [b]can't match while animations are playing[/b], always a big no-no, and already [b]on level 3(!) there are spreading nuisances multiplying after every move[/b]. end of level animations of extra power-ups blowing up can't be skipped either, which I don't always mind, they can be fun or exciting. here they're neither, and it took [b]almost a minute for level 1 to finally end after I completed it and I unlocked 11 of the 32 achievements as well[/b]. it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ridiculous. I don't care about achievements, but they're also buggy in all sorts of ways, e.g. the one for playing for 3 hours popped after an hour. it definitely felt like 3...
the game looks good enough if we disregard all the unbelievably ugly text, the acoustic music fits the outdoorsy theme and becomes irritating pretty fast, plus some power-up sounds are way louder than they should be. [b]the usual lack of polish andabundance of bugs[/b] coupled with a relatively high price obviously means [b]it's not recommended at all[/b]. however, even if they're all match-3 titles, I kind of admire how they don't just reskin the same thing and sell it over and over, like most casual (or non-casual) developers do. if only they had higher standards and/or better skills to produce something recommendable.
