Blastwave, from Invictus, is sort of three games in one featuring the same characters. You’ve got Chain Reaction where the goal is to make them all explode, Critical Mass where you want to keep them from combining and Collector where you, well, collect them.

The game offers a lot of variety and some interesting gameplay and some 30 levels per game mode. Overall, a lot of game for the price and while there’s not tons of replay value (once you run through all the levels there’s no reason to do them again) the game has quite a decent experience.

The sound reminds me of BaDaBoo with the creatures making a wide arrangement of squeaks and squawks. The music is light-hearted and non-intrusive. It certainly helps set the tone for the game and fits the setting.

The interface has you touching the screen to create ripples in the liquid environment that then affect the creatures floating in it either pushing them together, keeping them apart or directing them to a specific place. At times it’s slightly frustrating as they don’t always go where you want and the ripples seem to not affect them exactly how you might expect. But that’s all part of the game’s unique challenge I guess.

In Chain Reaction, as you might guess, you’re tasked with destroying all of the creatures on the level with a limited amount of touches. Carefully placing your touches will nudge them into each other or the walls which will cause them to detonate. Detonate them all in the allotted amount of touches and you succeed and move to the next level.

Critical mass sees you trying to keep them apart as like-minded creatures will merge into a larger one that will continue to float about and merge. There are also some that will merge with just about anyone and that can be problematic. You’re given a certain percentage of creatures that you need to maintain to pass each level.

Collector sees you pushing creatures about into collection bins. Sometimes the generator will only make one type of creature and you need another. That’s where the transformation machine comes in handy. Some bins are unknown so you have to, by trial and error get the proper creatures into them.

They’re all fun really but they lack something, a score, a leaderboard, something to show you how well or poorly you are doing against other players. Some have time limits and some don’t. That would be an ideal way of tracking progress and success.

Further Screens: