Do you like puzzle games that you have to solve within a certain number of moves and under time? Guppyville Flood is being offered over at the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace that calls upon your puzzle solving talents to clear roads that have flooded by an overflowing river.
The story line goes that the town of Guppyville has been hit by torrential rain that has caused the river to overflow and flood the area. In solving the puzzles, you clear the way to allow for support vehicles to access the town and provide aid to the villagers.
Story line aside, Guppyville is an interesting puzzle game for your Windows Phone. To find out more on Guppyville Flood, move on past the break.
Water, water every where
There is a storyline to Guppy Ville adds to the color and appearance of the game but the Guppy Ville can stand on its own without it. You begin the game by choosing your difficulty (easy, normal or "bring on the flood"). From there you learn that the friendly village of Guppy Ville has flooded and the villagers need your help by clearing the flooded roads.
You then go to the map view that shows the emergency vehicles heading towards the first flooded road. At each flooded road, you receive your mission briefing and then it's off to the actual game.
Before the first level of Guppy Ville, you'll have a tutorial on how to play the game (you can always access this through the menu later). Once your through reading the directions, you'll be sent to a summary screen for that particular level. You'll see how many liquibusts (more on this in a minute), your time limit, and what it will take to earn bonus bursts.
The Game
Once you get to the playing field, the game screen has the timer, your score, and liquid burst count (almost there). The game field is a wooden grid where you find various sized water droplets which you must burst, thus clearing the road.
Okay... now to the liquibusts. Simply put, the liquibursts are your moves. Droplets have to grow to full size before they burst. When you tap on a full sized water drop (full orb) it will burst and send droplets up, down and to the sides. The smaller droplets grow as the remains of the full sized drops hit them or you can spend a liquibust to make them grow (just remember you have a limited number of liquibusts.
Each washed out road (a.k.a. level) has a certain pattern to success. While you can earn bonus liquibusts (done through chain reaction bursts) you're still limited on the number of moves you can make in each level. In a nutshell, every move counts.
You complete the level by clearing the grid of all water drops. If time runs out or you run out of moves (a.k.a. liquibusts) you lose a life (you get five of them) and have to restart that particular level. As with other multi-level games, the further you progress, the more challenging the game becomes.
Oh.. and to add to the challenge, you won't see the same puzzle layout when you return after failing. I'm not sure how many variations are programmed into Guppy Ville but I didn't see the same puzzle layout back to back. The game keeps you on your toes.
Overall Impression
Guppy Ville is a entertaining, mildly addictive puzzle game for your Windows Phone. While the storyline it does give the game a little context, the challenge of solving the water drop puzzle will keep you coming back for more.
The puzzles, while challenging, are not impossible but you do have to think your moves out carefully. If you like puzzle games, Gupply Ville Flood is worth a try. There is a free trial available so you can try before you buy with the full version running $.99.
Both can be found here (opens Zune) at the Marketplace.
