Color Cross
Brain Teaser Games, Puzzle Games January 30th, 2009
(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
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Just when you thought that you’ve already played them all, even classic puzzle games still inspire innovation for their future counterparts. Color Cross is one such innovation, and this time around, it’s a whole new twist to the classic game, Picross. The same addictive gameplay is retained, but with a whole new challenge, it becomes an experience worth checking out.
Color Cross is the first game release of the French casual game developer, Little Worlds Studio. As their first release, I’m actually expecting nothing extravagant like most of the games I usually review. This is because I assume production values to be not that high, and with my experience with new development studios, I notice that they focus more on the overall fun factor of the game, and without much eye candy that doesn’t serve the gameplay very much.
Anyway, let’s take a brief recap of Picross rules because they very much apply also for Color Cross.
The objective of the game is for you to completely color a celled board by using the number clues on its top and left sides. Top number clues indicate colored cells for each column and those numbers on the side indicate colored cells for each row. For example, if there’s a number “15” on the top side, it means that there are 15 cells in a straight line on that particular column you need to shade. More numbers at the row or column indicate separate cells you need to shade, with at least a single cell in between them.
Color Cross adds a bit of twist to this simple gameplay by adding in more colors you need to use against the typical single-colored shade in Picross. There are up to 8 colors you must mix and match within a board considering the clues given to you with respect to a particular color. If you’re imagining this right, this basically means that by the time you finish with a board, you’ll notice a colorful pixel form of an image, which makes it a great accomplishment as you finish each stage.
The game has two modes of play: Classic and Arcade. In classic, you get to unlock and select from 10 themes with 15 puzzles each, increasing in difficulty as you solve along the puzzles. Your objective is to collect pieces of an overall picture depicting the idea of your current theme. The same is true for Arcade mode, but now, you must solve puzzles within a time limit and you don’t have an option to choose which level to play.
As I had said earlier, in terms of presentation, Color Cross will definitely fail to impress casual gaming fans used to insane graphics, music and special effects. If there’s a better adjective to describe the game, I say it is “retro”, and one thing I notice about successful retro games is that they focus more on addictiveness and smooth gameplay to compensate on lack of visual appeal.
With that said, Color Cross is amazingly addictive. After I started playing the game, I didn’t even notice that I’m already playing for hours, messing my schedule in the process. I’m guessing it’s more because of the Picross appeal, but the added twist is definitely a plus too.
One thing I absolutely disliked about the game though is the sounds. Most of the sound effects are very annoying, making me wish that they should have settled for some exploding noise rather than theme-specific sounds that are really a pain to hear. Good thing that many times, you’ll be too engaged on the puzzles to notice it much, but still, some improvements will serve the game better.
Color Cross is worth the money you spend to it if you’re looking for a quick game you can go back to time and time again. There are tons of levels that comprise the game and puzzle enthusiasts will definitely find it a great addition to their gaming libraries.
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