TriBalls

For those of you who may have seen Star Trek’s classic episode called ‘The Trouble with Tribbles’ you may have spotted the certain similarity. But for those of you who must have missed that episode, a Tribble is a cute fluff-ball which, although were cute, bred and caused havoc amongst the starship Enterprise. Ok I admit it, I’m a little bit of a classic Trekkie fan and any excuse to correlate something to an episode doesn’t come along often so you have to make the most of it when it does.

TriBalls is a pretty unique platformer which gives you the additional challenge of not just getting your character from A to B successfully, but with the extra puzzle factor of having three rather cute and fuzzy looking Balls to overcome the challenges presented. In a single player co-op style platform game like this, you have to use the different ‘Balls special abilities and weaknesses to your advantage. By using these different attributes, you’ll start to be able to see how you can accomplish the level by working these cuddly critters in tandem to make sure that you’ll complete the game successfully – without leaving any behind, or worse!

The controls are as you would expect using the keypad and d-pad and of course you get to swap between the different characters by simply pressing the swap key. As for the earlier levels, these start quite simply and give you all the basics you need to know before you progress to more challenging levels.

You will need to use a combination of lateral thinking, puzzle solving, detective work and just a bit of luck to survive all 24 challenging levels. Switches, levers, water hazards, lasers, and helping hands from other characters and objects are just a few of the things you’ll encounter on your travels. Whether it’s using a ‘Ball to flip a switch and lowering down a platform for your other ‘Balls to get on to, or using one of your special abilities to shield your ‘Ball from a hazard, you’ll start to work out by quite a bit of trial and error how to progress along the way.

This method of trial and error does get a little repetitive and mildly frustrating, but fortunately, there’s enough about each level to hold your attention and interest – even if you do end up having to keep going through the level quite a few times before successfully completing it.

Overall then, this cute game offers plenty of puzzles to solve and lots of fun for you to keep you entertained for hours. The graphics are good and the difficulty, although is challenging, isn’t impossible and perseverance will pay off in the end. If there’s any small bone to pick, it’d have to be the fact there’s only 24 levels to play and the difficulty does jump a little at times, but for the more seasoned players out there, you’ll still find this worthwhile playing.

Rating 85%

Positives

Good graphics and controls

Interesting levels with lots of challenges to keep you occupied

Novel approach to having a co-op platform game

Negatives

A bit repetitive – particularly when you have to replay the level when getting stuck

The difficulty level can jump from casual to very difficult at times