Balls and Magnets

Review

Have you ever played a mechanical maze game? You know what I mean, those mazes that have been carved within a wooden block that contain one or more balls.  There are two different types of gameplay and they are extremely simple. In some, you have to move a ball through the maze from point A to point B while avoiding holes. The other one is to make sure your ball (s) reach the hole in the middle of the maze while moving your hands ever so slightly up, down, left and right. Now, let’s replace the hand movements with magnets; some that pull your balls towards you and others that push them away. And yes, you need to make sure that a certain number of balls go through a dedicated opening to win. And to make it even more fun, they removed the side partitions so your marbles can fall into the abyss. Fun, hey?! Let’s have a game of Ball and Magnets!

Ball and Magnets is a puzzle game where you have to make sure a certain number of balls fall through a hole in order to clear each of the levels.

There are 50 levels to clear in this game. Each of the levels is made with a combination of geometrical shapes (square, rectangle, triangle etc). The hole will always be in the middle of a square which can vary in size depending on the level.  As I mentioned above, there are no retaining structures around the shapes so you need to be careful how you use the magnets to direct the balls into the hole. As for the number of balls, it varies between 8 to 14; the good news is that they will be static at the beginning of most stages. Here come the magnets!  The blues ones pull the spheres towards them and the red will push them in the opposite direction. Remember, there is no retaining structure around the shapes and you may frequently lose your balls!

Magnets can be positioned either above a shape, outside the shape or on the shape to make it slightly more difficult to clear a level. It’s all about the pressure of touch in this game; if you press on the blue magnet for a certain time, it will drag the balls quicker and stronger towards it than if you tap them lightly. Same thing with the red magnets.

For the first nine stages, you have to get between two to three balls in the hole, and towards the end up to 9 balls, which can be tricky in some occasions.  

The graphics are nice and simple and the soundtrack is very soothing. I would have liked to have a level editor which would give the consumer more re-playability. Also a leader board, because if you manage to get the correct number of balls in the hole, regardless of whether you have another 2 balls to manage, your level will automatically end. The other downside is that you’ll finish the game within an hour and a half.