3D Twist And Match – Review – iOS

The iPhone can be great for multi-touch and gesture-based games. Some really unique ideas are made using the touch screen, however, some games suffer from poorly executed gesture-based controls. Unfortunately, 3D Twist and Match from BulkyPix is one of these games.

Gameplay: The main gameplay mechanic in 3D Twist and Match is to rotate and match a 3D object to the matching silhouette in the background. You are given one object at a time and since it’s 3D, turning the object in one dimension is not enough – you also need to change its perspective in the 3D space. This simple gameplay mechanic can be addicting and fun as you try to quickly make matches within a given time. However, the gesture controls quickly degrade the fun.

The way the controls are setup are like this; to rotate the object slightly in a direction, swipe the screen in the middle up, down or side to side and to rotate the object in a circular manner left and right, swipe the screen around the outside in said circular direction. Putting that in words that are easy to understand is hard to do; even the help section only uses pictures. Anyways, this idea for controlling the object is neat, but what I find frustrating is how it is executed. First off, I find the controls to be slow and quite often unresponsive. Also, sometimes the direction you want to go can be really confusing and you are unsure of which area to swipe to get the correct match which results in lost time. There is a practice mode, but a lot of the time, the ones that pose the most challenge are rotated in an obscure way or the object is blocking the silhouette. Naturally, when the default controls aren’t quite to your liking, you turn to the options. I went into options to see if I could change it and to my surprise, no control options were available. I think having different control schemes such as a way to free rotate or having directional arrows on the screen would have made the gameplay more fluent and potentially less frustrating.

There are two game modes available – Classic and Rush. Classic mode is all about points and time. You are given an overall time that decreases. Quickly matching a silhouette will give you more points and time. Slower matches give less points and little to no time. Rush is similar to classic except you have less time to match each shape before the next one is available.

Graphics/audio: There are multiple themes, each with their own static background that relates to the objects. For instance, there is a kitchen theme with objects you might use while baking or cooking. There is also a sports theme, animal theme, winter theme and many more. The 3D objects are a fairly low rendered model, but still portray the object quite clearly. However edges can be jagged and can probably be better with retina support. From theme to theme, the audio changes and in some cases relates to the current theme more than others.

Overall: The matches are definitely a challenge to figure out at times. Sometimes it’s just a quick turn one way; other times it’s something that requires many turns. With the controls though, it’s hard sometimes to get the right match, especially when you have to fully turn an object around 360 degrees sideways and then again forward in the 3D space. It can be good for some quick bit sized gaming, but with the current gesture controls, I can’t see myself playing it too much without getting frustrated. With some new control options such as free rotate or directional arrows, I could see it being really fun and playable.

Pros:
-Potential to be addicting and fun
-Nice variety of themes

Cons:
-Poor execution of controls
-No additional control options
-Slow and occasionally unresponsive controls
-Jagged and low poly objects. Could probably be improved with retina display

Overall score: 5/10

An iPhone code for this game was provided from the publisher for reviewing purposes.

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