[h1]Overview:[/h1]
'[i]Magic gems[/i]' is a color collecting game where the objective is to collect as many colored tiles as you can in as few moves as possible to meet the amount needed to finish the level. On the surface it seems casual and innocent enough but soon enough you realize the flaw behind the game and I'll explain that later. There are 11 levels in total and all of them play the same. No new features or mechanics are introduced, it's quite literally just clicking on the gems with the most connected pieces.
The game itself is done very poorly and appears to have been developed by one person rushing to push out a cheap product that lacks even the most basic of quality. There's no story, no introduction, no tutorials and not even an ending for all your troubles. Absolutely nothing. There aren't even achievements despite the game stating that there are, that's false advertising at its finest. In addition to that, the reviews on the store page are as believable as a casino telling you that you're gonna win the next big one. This is essentially [i]Steam's[/i] version of a cheap dollar store clearance toy and it can be completed in less than 20 minutes.
[h1]Gameplay:[/h1]
'[i]Magic gems[/i]' advertises itself as a (and I quote) "[i]three in a row[/i]" game but is nothing like that. What the game [i]actually[/i] is is a game where you can essentially click anything you want, even single gems can be collected and counts as a move. The whole "three in a row" premise is thrown out the window because you aren't trying to create a row of at least 3 gems of the same type, you're just clicking them (preferably in large clusters). That is [i]not[/i] "three in a row". So if you're a fan of those types of games like the developer suggests, avoid '[i]Magic gems[/i]' as it isn't that at all. Even then avoid it as it has more red flags than an Olympic downhill skiing event.
Digressing from that, the game (as simple as it is) becomes surprisingly difficult in later stages as the moves provided to the player are too small to be able to complete a stage at a reasonable level. More than half of the levels give the player 20 moves which for the most part is more than enough to meet quota required to beat the level but once you hit the later levels it comes down to luck to beat them. You begin having to rely on the randomly generated levels to form large clusters in your favor or else beating the stage becomes impossible. For the most part you're only able to find clusters of 4 or less gems when you require more than 100, and you only have 20 moves to get there, do the math. Only in the stages near the end of the game does the game finally have some mercy and give you an extra 5 moves and even then it doesn't help a lot as the gems required to beat [i]those[/i] levels scale up even higher.
Another thing that's confusing is the sprites used to represent quota and moves. The game uses a red diamond shaped gem to represent the players' quota. Coincidentally, there's a red diamond shaped gem in the game. So imagine my confusion when I was only trying to collect the red gems thinking that's what the game requested when in fact, I could just get any gem I wanted. Why use a sprite of a gem almost identical to one of the gems on the playing area when you aren't asking for that particular gem?
Not only that but the moves are represented by what looks like a circular yellow gem. And low and behold, one of the gems on the board is [b][i]also[/i][/b] a circular yellow gem! Once again, I believed I needed both red and yellow so you could imagine my dismay when the numbers weren't adding up when I started collecting them. It's just baffling how you could mess something up that bad. You'd have to [b]try[/b] to screw something like that up. Honestly, it would've been better to just have numbers with words rather than pictures. At least that would eliminate any form of confusion.
[h1]Controls:[/h1]
Just click on the largest clusters and hope to god that you meet the required number to complete the level.
[h1]Graphics:[/h1]
Appears very cheaply made with just a few game sprites here and there with a basic game board with basic sprites. The background also looks like something you can literally recreate in [i]Microsoft Paint[/i] and holds no decent quality whatsoever.
[h1]Audio:[/h1]
The game has no sound effects but it [i]does[/i] have rather crappy music with a terrible loop. Trust me, within a minute, the music becomes gruelling to say the least and guess what? There's no option to turn it off, what a treat.
[h1]Conclusion/TL;DR:[/h1]
'[i]Magic gems[/i]' is a color collecting game where you collect gems as efficiently as possible with the given moves. It does [i]not[/i] play like a "three in a row" or "match-3" game as many potential buyers might think. You just click the biggest cluster of gems of the same color. The gameplay is simple, straightforward and offers no new mechanics whatsoever and gets old fast on top of looking very cheaply made and being riddled with fake/paid for reviews. Even with 11 levels and gameplay based on luck, the game can still be finished in under 20 minutes. It gives absolutely nothing to the player (even an ending/credits screen) for beating the game and for a price of CDN$ 14.49, that's criminal. Avoid at all costs.
