Now the basics of the game are easy to grasp but there are far more advanced things to do with chains and combos. It’s all explained very well in the tutorials so I won’t go into detail. There are numerous special blocks in the game also aside from your standard colored blocks. Some will block all rays, some will block rays of certain colors. Some will alter the paths of the rays and some will alter the blocks around them in some way. There are monsters that will eat blocks, blocks that affect the environment and some that require very special handling. Again, it’s all in the tutorials and while they are not all that challenging they will certainly help you master the game.

The graphics in the game are interesting. There are animated backgrounds and sprites to give you some extra visuals. The blocks all have a specific look to them but the art style ties them all together in a cohesive package. The developers even took into consideration that not everyone will want all the fancy animated backgrounds and sprites nor pop ups for scores and multipliers etc. It can all be shut off in the Settings menu to make the game less visually overwhelming. Now that is something you don’t see in every game and more games should definitely have. I don’t know how many times I’ve played some match three or shmup and wished I could simplify some of the visuals.

The sound is well done as well. After an hour or so I shut off the music, but only so that I could listen to music of my own choice. There’s nothing wrong with the music in the game though I thought it did feel somewhat repetitive after a while. But again, there’s an option to turn it off.

Overall, this is the most robust and interesting casual game I have seen in some time. There is so much to do and so many ways to play I don’t even know that casual actually suits it. Yes the gameplay is casual but this is a highly developed, well-rounded, offering from Arcen Games that puts many games of higher price to shame. It’s got numerous ways to play and very successfully takes an old genre, turns it on its head, and shows you just what can be done when you think outside of the box. Kudos to Arcen Games on this one. They even managed to squeeze in the ability to post your scores to Twitter (what, no Facebook?!) so you can brag to your friends (and help get them into the game of course).

Available on GamersGate, Steam, Impulse, Direct2Drive, myGameIQ, and MacGameStore on this Friday, July 16th. Price is around $10-12.