Sometimes you wake up and you just feel like blowing something up. But, like... in a cute way. On those days, Megadev's aggressively adorable and addictive match-3 puzzle games Bomboozle and Bomboozle 2 are there for you like old friends, and now there's Bomboozle 3, also available for Android and iOS. The game has a few different play modes, but the basic mechanics remain the same. Click groups of three or more coloured blobs to remove them from the board, and remove a certain number before the board becomes unusable to move on to the next stage. Rainbow blobs are wildcards and can become part of any colour chain, while skulls, which appear any time you match a mere three blobs, can only be cleared by double-clicking a nearby bomb to blast them (and any surrounding blobs!) away. To make sure you get more bombs, make matches of five or more... you'll need them to blast open chests to increase your score. In the top-left corner is a gauge that fills up as you make matches, and when it's full, you can click the icon when it cycles to the colour you want to clear the board of all matching blobs.
If you want a puzzle game that's cute and "one more level" style addictive, Megadev's work is usually going to be on your short list. Bomboozle 3, like the other games in the series, is a polished and professional looking little gem whose pick-up-and-play style of gameplay can suck you in for as little or as long as you want. Through not much of a challenge until beyond level five in Regular mode, once different blobs start showing up, you'll have to really think and plan your clicks. Visual style changes are always going to be polarizing, and just as many people will likely find the sketchy art and animated characters adorable as others will annoying, though you can turn the sound effects off if you find the blob's mindless sounds too trying. In some ways, however, Bomboozle 3 also feels simplified compared to Bomboozle 2, which offered a variety of powers, such as clearing specific rows or rotating the board, based on how many colours you matched rather than the basic colour-clearing power you have now. Levels tend to be long, and the game is slow to dole out more variety, so it may not hold your attention for quite as long without more power options to play with. At the same time, however, though Bomboozle 3 doesn't really do much different from its predecessors, it's about the perfect size and fit for players who want something fast, vibrant, and a snap to play. With four different gameplay modes, an eye-catching design, and gameplay easy for anyone to get into, Bomboozle 3 is definitely a fun and satisfying little puzzle game.
Bomboozle 3 (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad)
Bomboozle 3 (Android)
I didn't really see what the goal was so I gave up on it after a few levels. Is the goal just how high of a score I can get? If so, then there's no point in there being levels. It's just another random block of blobs, and that's what I had before the level changed. It should just keep going until you run out of combinations to explode and then the game ends.
The goal is to not run out of moves. But for me, this is too easy until level 11, when the number of differently coloured blobs gets increased to a point, when suddenly it is almost impossible not to lose right there.
Maybe some balancing to make that less so?
Overall a fun game with cute sound effects.
Update