Game Review: Droom

Droom is an absolutely adorable puzzle game created by Yu Sun. It is a free game playable on mobile.

Can we just talk about how cute the graphics are? You play as a small white polygonal rabbit seen at the bottom of both screen caps. Like many games, the style is polygonal art style - everything goes together so well here, the colours, shapes, sound effects. It's really clean and simple and glitch free. Unlike other games, the interactive area does not take up the entire screen as shown above so it almost looks like a design poster. Again this was inspiration for our game project - the clean polygonal art and the sort of movement and interactions.

The controls are fairly simple. However, they do have a tutorial level at the very beginning so it ensures there is no confusion. It's the typical tap and move type which is common in many games and not hard to figure out if you're a regular phone game player. The only difficulty is if you tap too close to the tile next to the tile you want to move onto, it can jump onto the wrong tile and waste a move. However there is a restart level button with no cost.

Despite its simplicity, as the game progresses, the puzzles get much more challenging and the area of the puzzle gets larger. The number shown above, below the title 'step' are the amount of steps you can move - once it reaches zero, yo have to restart. The black/white dots hovering above the rabbit must match with the number and colour of dots hovering above the gate for the door to open into the next level. Later on, the amount of steps decrease which makes the game more challenging. The less steps taken to complete the task, the higher the score at the end of each level. The rate of increasing difficulty is slow enough for people who aren't so well rehearsed with puzzle games, but fast enough for other players to not get bored. The levels are not too repetitive as the theme changes from pond to desert to rocky areas.

The game has no point system as you are not collecting anything, just puzzle solving. Another aspect of the game are the other characters - they too have a small story line that runs in the background. The little bird shown in the second picture is trying to reunite with its lover. And as you progress it shows they later on meet up. They have no real interaction with you, the player. You can talk to them and they tell you their situation or problem but they don't give you quests which makes me think their existence is quite pointless, but it does give the character something to do or checkout other than solving the puzzle. Early in the game I did interact with them, but later on when step moves were more limited, I could not spare steps to talk with them.

The game doesn't require internet and it loads and quits fast which is perfect for games to pass time or during bus rides.

This is a pretty good game with pretty graphics that's suitable for everyone. It's not a stand out game that makes you go 'wow' but it does entertain you and makes you go 'aw' instead.