[i]Silver Tale[/i] is a Match 3 game that takes the genre to another level. If you're looking for the best Match 3 game that offers nothing but pure Match 3 gaming, I recommend [i]Bejeweled 3[/i]. If you'd like to play a Match 3 game that offers a bit more than just Match 3 gaming, [i]Silver Tale[/i] is my personal new favorite I'd like to recommend to you.
[h1]Story[/h1]
There is a story: the king is sick and you set out to find a cure for him. That's it. You didn't expect a Match 3 game to be story-heavy, did you?
[h1]Gameplay[/h1]
Match 3 games are games where you need to combine three or more of the same variety of tiles, usually by swapping two of those tiles. [i]Silver Tale[/i] does that and it does it well, so it's a good Match 3 game.
But [i]Silver Tale[/i] is a lot more than just a Match 3 game. You travel across an adventure map that marks 200 levels. Each of these levels is a match 3 challenge.
Basically, there are four types of tiles: stone, wood, food and alchemy bottles. Matching these, you acquire resources. Some of the tiles are colored red. To clear the level, you need to clear these red-colored tiles before your allotted number of moves runs down to zero.
If you don't manage to clear all of the red-colored tiles before running out of moves, you lose one of your five lives and have to restart the level. Your lives will slowly regenerate (one every 20 minutes).
Completing a level by clearing the red-colored tiles is fairly easy, but if you want the badge for clearing the level, you need to do away with every special thing on the board: tiles that hide resources, which can be proteced by ice or bars on the tile, resource veins that are enclosed by the surrounding tiles, silver and gold chests that require a silver or gold key to open, … After every 25 or so levels, you need a certain number of badges in order to continue. So if you've been rushing through the levels, you may have to replay a few to increase your badge count in order to progress.
Some match 3 levels's goal is a bit different: there are puzzle levels where you just need to clear the board, but if you want the badge you can only use a certain number of moves. Other levels require you to dig down to the bottom of a cave before you run out of moves. This variety in level design and level goals keeps the game (even more) interesting.
At the start of the game, you're given a horse that needs food and grooming so as to offer you more maximum moves. You can name your horse. I named mine Roach. Kudos points if you can guess where I got that name from ;-)
You can craft items at a blacksmith, mostly items to groom your horse but also items that provide you with special abilities on the 'battle field' (the Match 3 levels). These abilities are e.g. a bomb that blows up a number of tiles around the tile you place it on, an increase of maximum moves, a way to delete all tiles of one type from the board, a way to do away with part of the reinforced tiles on the board, …
From these chests and special tiles, you may acquire a crafting element or an artifact. Completing a set of artifacts yields a reward. The reward can be gold, which is used to buy things from the town's shop, or items like a feather that will replenish your 5 lives or rejuvenate your horse when it's near death.
You will see quests pop up on the world map. All of these quests require you to collect a number of crafting elements or resources. Their reward can be just some gold but also upgrades to the wood, stone, food or alchemy tiles, providing you with more resources while clearing match 3 levels.
If all of this sounds a bit confusing, that's because it is. At first, [i]Silver Tale[/i] feels overwhelming in its compexity. But by the time you've completed the first 20 levels or so, you'll have the basics under your belt. By the time the game gets a bit challenging, i.e. as of the 50th level or so, you'll have grasped the game mechanics to the fullest.
Every day you start the game, you can spin a wheel to get a daily reward. These rewards get better every day. This motivates you to log in every day and play a few levels, prolonging the duration of this game which you may otherwise abandon after a few dozens of levels.
In the options menu, you can toggle 'relaxed mode'. When enabled, this mode gives you more moves each level, making the experience very doable, especially for new players.
[h1]Graphics and sound[/h1]
The graphics are basic, of course, but they serve their purpose. I especially liked the way the stone, wood, food and alchemy tiles's icons change when you upgrade them through quests or crafting. The effects of the special skills are also okay for a simple game like this.
Voice acting is lackluster. Not bad, not good, just mediocre. Since you'll soon discover that the goal of each and every quest is to collect a certain amount of resources and/or crafting materials, I soon skipped all conversations and just had the game show me the goal to achieve.
The music consists of three melodies that alternate. I found the three melodies atmospeheric and they definitely were long and different enough to not get annoying, but I did seem to recognize one of the three melodies although I couldn't quite place it.
[h1]On Steam's extra features[/h1]
[i]Silver Tale[/i] has no Steam Trading Cards and no Steam Achievements.
