Features

Tetris goes to the flowers in Orchidia, a falling block game or rather “floating items” game. Today’s casual games don’t just stop at making matches and preventing blocks from reaching the top as in Tetris. Instead, they have a story that revolves around the game play. Orchidia represents the name of a place where the villain Orchus destroys its magic by blocking the river. At the same time, Orchus works to escape the river’s magic, which has trapped him.

Accompanied by a quick-witted duck, players must unclog the 60 levels of blockages in the river to restore Orchidia’s magic and rid of Orchus. Evil creatures also pop in with tongue-in-check conversation to talk smack and scare the player away from saving Orchidia while the good creatures provide advice on what to do in conquering the current blockage. The only complaints in the game are the hard-to-read text in the dialog and the difficult to use game options. The game options are standard, but changing them takes effort — a usability issue.

Players control the floating flowers by moving them left or right, rotating them and speeding up their floating. You have the option of using the mouse or keyboard. Leaves, flowers and other river blocks come out from the sides to add barriers in the quest to meet the current level’s goal. Goals range from sinking 60 flowers and freeing creatures to clearing 10 flowers of the same color and collecting 50 leaves without clogging the river.

Some falling block games will clear the blocks when making a match of three or more connecting items — not necessarily in a row or column like in the following example:

X
XX
  X

More than three X’s connect, thus some games consider this a match. Orchidia only accepts matches when three items appear in the same row or column, which boosts the challenge. The level of difficulty climbs just the right amount with each completed level. Some games do a poor job by jumping from easy to hard between two levels instead of a little at a time — not a problem in Orchidia. The game never trapped me in a level for so long that I wanted to give up. Some levels took a few tries to conquer, but I got through them with practice and experience.

While falling block games are a-plenty, Orchidia comes with power ups — in the form of charms — to help clear flowers and creatures or add extra time. The Touch Charm clears the flowers it touches. The Row Charm erases the flowers and objects appearing in the row where it lands. The Column Charm does the same for columns. Flower Color Charms sinks flowers of the same color as the charm.

The music reminded me of weddings when the bridesmaids walk down the aisle. The music complemented the flowers floating down the river to create a calm and content feel though you have a dangerous job in saving Orchidia. Like most casual games, Orchidia comes in two modes: Adventure (story) and Orchidia Eternal. In the latter, the game works more like Tetris where you keep clearing flowers to avoid reaching the top of the river.

The scenes in this whimsical game vary from winter with snow and spring to cobwebbed plants and flowers to heighten the challenge. This fantasy game is a lovely package complete with the occasional commentary from voices providing positive reinforcement, charming graphics, and creative twist on Tetris.

Download free trial of Orchidia or play online.

Joyboost offers game instructions, hints and tips, and wallpaper.

System Requirements: Windows

• Windows 2000/XP/Vista
• 256MB RAM
• 1GHz or faster Processor