The Game is ON

It’s a short, entertaining game built on idioms. For some reasons, I expected a variety of English language-based puzzles, but “The Game Is On” is based almost exclusively on idioms. There will be a tiny speck of different puzzles here (a few math ones come to mind), as an extra incentive to find all the jigsaw pieces scattered across all the levels, but in general – it’s fairly straightforward. I like the humor here – a bit silly, a bit wacky, probably not for everyone, but it can be discerned from screenshots and trailers almost immediately, so those who would go for it – most likely will “get” it. While the humor works, when it comes to actual idiom guessing – it can be a hit and miss. A good portion can be solved by using brain cells, but quite a few will eventually be solved by clicking every possible combination of available items until the result will be displayed. In about half of the cases I thought “Oh, man! I should’ve known that”, but in the other half it was “Oh, wow. This wasn’t what I was thinking AT ALL”. Keep in mind though, that Boris is from south-east Europe and his English “not very gud”, so maybe it’s that intriguing foreign logic applied to English idioms that made things slightly confusing. Fun, but confusing. There’s a hint system, by the way, but I didn’t find it to be immensely helpful – it just highlights everything you can click on, that’s about it. In a way, it did force me to sit and think longer than I probably would have otherwise, but it could have definitely been something more solid. Developer is responsive on forums, however, so that’s cool. There’s pleasant looping BG music present – just enough to keep you going for yet another short level, and the graphics are “simple cartoon” style, but it totally works with the humor and the game itself. Basically, if you know what you are walking into – a short game based on silly idiom guessing - it’ll be an entertaining brainteaser/confuser (yeah, I made up the last word – let’s hope Boris will pick it up, hehe). Won’t be for everyone, as this is as indie as it gets, but I enjoyed it, so no regrets.