Flower Power Gecko

There have been several super-heroes which bring a novel new look to the humble and mostly harmless animals that surround us.

From Sonic the Hedgehog to Earthworm Jim, we have all experienced or at least heard of one cute character which has come to the rescue of a damsel in distress or simply gobbled up items to get the highest score imaginable. Flower Power Gecko is one of the latter styled games. You have a few different style games where you must solve puzzles, munch on pretty flowers or avoid thorns and bees.

In this rather cute game, your Gecko is tasked with the Normal game. Whereby you move your character from left to right at the bottom of the screen as a variety of coloured flowers sprout and fall from the top of the screen. Equipped with your Gecko’s lightning quick tongue, by pressing ‘down’ you can flick it at the flower and munch on it. Alternatively, by pressing ‘up’ on the keypad you can destroy the flower or flick away a pesky bee.

By eating four flowers of the same colour in a row you will receive ‘flower power’, which for a short spell increases your speed and improve your stamina (as well as boost the figures on the board!).

If you like you can also pay attention to the small sequence of flowers in the bottom left of the screen which if completed successfully increases your time. As this is a game where you’re running against the clock - it is a good idea to ensure you do this or else your game will end prematurely and any dreams of a hi-score are dashed very swiftly.

Alternatively, if you find this Normal mode a little too repetitive you have the option to play the Puzzle game. Pick between 3, 4 or 5 coloured flowers (please note fewer is easier), you must then arrange them in a sequence to make sure that at least three of the same colour are arranged in a row. By destroying the bottom flower, the pattern will rotate and by selecting two columns at a time you can swap them around. Needless to say this is quite difficult to do and involves a high perception, a good deal of logic and just a touch of luck to do.

Lastly, but by no means least, you can unleash your speed in a significantly quick version in the Action mode. Rather than simply collecting flowers, you must dodge thorns as they fall. This task is made a little easier with short invulnerability spells which you can activate by pressing the ‘OK’ button when it’s looking very dangerous. Other power-ups include extra lives and a different backdrop when you level-up.

In essence this is a hybrid game, consisting of challenging reactions and your brain cells and is a highly enjoyable game.

Rating 86%

Positives

3 styles of game and different difficulty levels

Cute graphics

Challenging but enjoyable

Negatives

Pretty repetitive

Sometimes it’s not easy to see the thorns against some backdrops and did cause my eyes to water with eye strain with so much going on screen at one time

You couldn’t stock up more than 3 extra lives or 1 invulnerability in the Action mode