Chains is a color-matching app-style game released by 2DEngine.com. At first glance, it looks like other color matching app-style games like Bejeweled and Candy Crush. Not that there’s anything wrong with those, mind you, but Candy Crush already does what it does so well that most people don’t need another Candy Crush.
The concept is similar, to link up adjacent like-colored objects to clear them out. But Chains goes above and beyond by giving a much more varied level design and with different objectives. In some levels the objective is simply to reach a certain level of matches, or to reach a certain level of matches without losing more than x off the side of the screen. Still others require an extended chain of more than X balls to pass the level, to exactly match two pails full of balls that each have a “weight” value, or to make exact change with numbered balls. My personal favorite is a level where the balls are flowing in a river through a partial obstructed streambed and you have to make matches to keep the stream clear. Fast paced twitchy fun.
Visuals
What you’d expect for a color-matching game.
Audio
Good instrumental museum.
Challenge
Some of the levels are pretty challenging, trying to keep up with the high pace of matching.
Story
None
Session Time
None of the fast-paced levels take more than a few minutes. You only lose your progress within the level, probably just a few minutes.
Playability
Very easy to pick up–click on a colored ball and drag across nearby ones. Release button to clear or right-click to cancel. Easy peasy.
Replayability
Depends on how “record” oriented you are. If you like to try to beat records could replay for that, I guess.
Originality
Not super original, being more of the color-matching variety. But I thought they did as good a job with level variety as they could.
Playtime
It took about 2 hours to play through the 20 levels.
Overall
Fun game, of the app variety, does a better job with level style variety than most color matching games. $5 on Steam.