Repixland

I’m kind of ashamed to admit this, but for a while there I was hopelessly addicted to Bejeweled Blitz.  It got to the point where “just one more game” was replaced by “the fire on my clothes can wait a second.”  Repixland is more akin to the Jewel Quest series of match-three puzzlers in that you’re trying to match squares on specific parts of the game board to win.  So it’s a clone of a clone.  And as anyone who watched Multiplicity knows, clones of clones are born with Down Syndrome.

Repixland is technically playable.  The controls work, the graphics are mostly clean, and the sound doesn’t offend.  Yet there’s something very off about it.  Maybe it’s the fact that this genre has been beaten into the ground so much that it’s toes are now sticking out of the other end of the Earth.  Maybe it’s the fact that there’s so many better options out there, some of which are free.  Maybe it’s the generic themes Flan Games chose for the game.  Maybe it’s a combination of all of the above.

It’s not well designed either.  I experienced a full system crash while playing through the alien level.  It only happened once and I was later able to complete the game, but it’s still there.  And in the “really, what the fuck?” department, you can pause the game but it doesn’t stop the timer.  So it’s a pause button that doesn’t do a damn thing.  More over, the timer continues to run even after you beat a level.  I finished one board and went to check on my lunch.  When I came back, I had game-overed because of it.

So Repixland sucks, right?  Does the Pope shit in the woods?  Well of course he doesn’t.  He shits in the bathroom like everyone else.  But yes, Repixland does indeed suck.  Throw a rock in any direction and you’re likely to hit a better Bejeweled clone.  That or you’ll break a window.  If you do that, just claim you’re crusading for social reform, then help yourself to a couple of mink coats and an iPad.

Repixland was developed by Flan Games

80 Microsoft Points think Pope John XII likely did shit in the woods, among other places, in the making of this review.