Tetris clones are easy to come by and some are just a direct clone and add nothing new or no value to the “Tetris genre”. However, when a company can take a basic concept of stacking blocks and turn it into a party game, then you have something special. That’s exactly what you have with Tricky Towers.
The Tip and The Top
The game’s concept is simple: you stack bricks that have the basic shapes that are in Tetris. Tricky Towers though adds some flare. The game offers two different ways to play, either solo offline or online competitive modes.
The game breaks things down into three different categories. Racing – where you are building your tower as fast as you can to cross the finish line. Puzzle – where you build your tower with the allotted bricks and build it in a way that will fit in a certain area, so it does not cross a line (if your pieces do cross the line, you fail). Finally, there is the Survival mode – where you have three hearts and you try to build your tower with the bricks given to you without the bricks falling – if they fall, you lose one of your hearts. You lose all three hearts and you fail.
You compete against other magic builders – in the case of solo play, you play against the AI, and online you play against other players. Not only do you race against time and try to defy gravity, but your opponent can cast spells on your bricks to cause havoc to your perfectly planned tower.
The solo game offers 50 different levels and each level increases the difficulty. You may find yourself in solo mode to hone your skills to compete in multiplayer mode…
Multiplayer is where this game is at its best. You can compete between 2-4 different players, either local couch play or online play. The developers know that this is where most people will spend most of their time in the game; in fact, you can go to their website and download templates for creating your own local tournaments, printable crowns to wear, and even download the template for a 3D trophy! Yeah, they know how to market to their strengths.
In the online mode, you can either play in a single battle or compete in a trophy tournament. Whether you play online or solo, the games are short. The games go by so quickly that, even when you fail, you do not feel like it will be a hassle to try again.
The Flip and The Flop
While this game’s strength lies in the multiplayer and online competitive modes, there is no way for you to set up a match with just your friends. You are pitted against random players (per chance you may run into your friends) but there is no way for one friend to host the game while the others can join in. This is a real shame. Other than that, the online matchmaking works perfectly well.
You do cast spells in this game that either help you and your efforts to build your tower or cast a spell that will hurt your opponents. This is a really cool aspect of the game, however, there is nothing in the game that tells you what the spells are and what they do. This information is found on Tricky Towers website, but it would have been nice to have a reference guide built into the game.
Final Thoughts
This is a must buy for those of you that are looking for a fun party game that provides a twist on the Tetris genre. The quick play of each match certainly makes a loss much easier to swallow. If you are a fan of Tetris, puzzle games, or competitive local couch games, this game is definitely for you.
Review copy provided by Weird Beard Games
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