Negative Gamer Review: Planet Delta (Xbox Indie Games)

When I first saw the name, I had no clue what to expect out of this game (which was kindly sent to us by the developers). To my pleasant surprise, I found Planet Delta to fall within one of my favorite genres: OMG COLORS AND PUZZLES.

With so many iterations and re-skins of puzzle concepts already flooding the XBLA and Indie channels already, we’ll see if Planet Delta can push itself forward from the pack.

If you can’t think of an original puzzler, just turn a current one upside down.

What’s “unique” about Planet Delta is its gameplay. The website describes it as a “pinball match-3″ puzzle game. Basically, take Snood/Bust-A-Move and turn it upside down. You use a plunger (like you’d see on a pinball machine) to shoot the ball upward and let it fall on to a pile of different colored, circular “ores.” The longer you hold the button, the farther the bit of ore you are shooting goes. Like Bust-A-Move, there is a guide in the form of a shadow that moves along the screen to show you where the ore will fall. If you take too long, the floor starts moving upward–again, exactly like Bust-A-Move.

What’s a bit different is that you can use your points earned in the game to buy rainbow ores or bombs. This gives you a slight advantage in solving harder puzzles later in the game.

So, for all intents and purposes this game is simply Bust-A-Move flipped over. They even have the aforementioned rainbow ore, which functions the same as the rainbow bubbles in Bust-A-Move. There are a few new special blocks such as bombs that can explode ores nearby,  bags of gas that can be broken, orbs that can shift the board up or down, and blocks/colorless orbs that must be hit EXACTLY in a vertical drop to break or activate (which is extremely annoying). These items add a little more variety and originality to the gameplay.

The odd thing is, even though these games are quite similar, Planet Delta is more challenging since you simply cannot eyeball the angle to shoot an orb from. Yes, there is a small meter on the plunger to show how much power you’ve been using, however it’s not nearly as intuitive to use. It is especially obnoxious to use this system when you have to make precise vertical hits to break rocks. The controls of this game work decently, but it is difficult to be as precise as the game sometimes requires.

Is the map upside down too?

I need to be perfectly honest here: the maps of this game confuse the hell out of me. They sure  are cute and well-drawn–but what do they mean? They’re pretty, but a bit pointless.

I think they’re supposed to be progress bars for how far through the game you go. It is rather confusing, since in some areas you can choose your next destination and others you can’t. Once you choose a path you can’t go back and explore other paths with potentially different puzzles.

There’s not much to else complain about here, though–the art in this game is awesome, especially compared to some of the crap you see in other Indie games. They might not be perfect, but the game looks stylized and well-polished.

A great example of how music can kill a decent game.

Planet Delta is not a bad game. But for some reason after I stopped playing, I kept remembering it as much worse than it was. It took me ages to figure out why, but it’s something pretty simple:  the soundtrack simply does not match the overall mood.

The art is cartoony, the characters quirky (if somewhat pushed into the background) and the gameplay fairly solid. So why did the team choose background music that is low, minimalistic and trance-like? The music is a bit reminiscent of Hexic, where it fits perfectly well among the clean, simple design and matching melodic sound effects.

In Planet Delta, the only place where the soundtrack seems to fit is the first level you play, which takes place on an asteroid in space. The tracks are low and very bass-heavy, which gives the game a weird, dark mood. The repetitive moody music simply does  not reflect the whimsical style of the rest of the game.

From too easy to impossible.

I’m going to be perfectly honest here and say that I was unable to finish the game. I’ve been playing in Arcade mode and didn’t have the least bit of trouble until I hit a level in the third area, the caves. It’s the last puzzle in the area and it includes “locked blocks” with a layer of randomly covered overlaying them in a pyramid shape. “Locked blocks” are similar to locked blocks in Hexic HD’s Survival mode: you have to make a combo of three or more orbs touching the locked blocks in order to unlock them.

Given the time limit, this level is a lot harder than it should be. I had no problems getting past any other level before this with relative ease, however this puzzle stopped me cold. I played a third, half hour long session before writing this review, and I still didn’t get any closer to advancing to the next level. So, the difficulty curves seems a bit whack (and yes, I mean wiggity whack).

Some other points worth mentioning…

• Beware some garbled bit of English: “Once upon a time, into the depths of the universe…” is the opener of the game in its comic-like introduction.  I find it to be somewhat charming, but it may irk those who are fans of proper grammar.
• The game boasts 3 modes of gameplay, but one of them is “Practice” and Arcade and Story Modes are almost identical. I think in arcade mode you use “lifes” (yes, it is spelled this way when you die in the game) while story mode the lives are there but have no real function.
• It’s not a huge deal or anything, but the character design is…weird. You’re this armless blue horseshoe-shaped thing that looks more like a Lucky Charms marshmallow than a sentient species.
• The game costs a mere 80 space bucks on Xbox Live, even though the game’s website sells the game for $15 on PC. Odd.

This is a game that’s a bit hard to review. Even though it has many elements in it’s favor such as clean graphics, solid gameplay and a low price point, it still just feels kind of boring to me. As a person who struggles with constant puzzle addition to games like Bejeweled, Planet Puzzle League, Bust-A-Move, and Hexic HD, I was surprised to find I didn’t get the “addictive gameplay” feel from Planet Delta. This could possibly be attributed to the game’s leaning towards the casual gaming crowd. It seems to fall just short of being a truly enjoyable game, falling instead into the category of “satisfactory.” It shows a degree of promise in regards to future games from Evolution Dreams Studio, and I hope their next game will push just a little harder to create a more full-bodied game experience.

You should play this game if…

…you’re poor and want a cheap alternative to paying $20 for Bust-A-Move. Or if you want a decent puzzle game that won’t break halfway through (I’m looking at you, Zuma).

There is not really much that is wrong with this game from a technical standpoint. It can feel a little dry and monotonous but overall a good deal for the price.

(What does this score mean?)