Village Gamer

Vancouver – I acquired Diamond Fever, the new iPhone/iPod Touch game by Ontario’s Howling Moon Games yesterday, and while the game play is very simple, putting the game down is not.

There are no special effects, no winnable power-ups, and the only options are to play – with the music on or off. This game is simply addictive, with the only challenges being to beat the game’s ten levels and best your own top score. Diamond Fever brings out the competitive nature of the player and as the difficulty of each level increases, the player is hard-pressed to keep those diamonds away from the crate of explosives in the middle of the screen. The game does save the last level which you successfully completed, and you are able to select any completed level as a starting point.

Game play is similar to that of the Collapse franchise, where the player must match groups of three or more game pieces to advance through the levels. While Diamond Fever is comprised of only ten levels, from level 4 onwards the challenges facing the player grow exponentially through the addition of more colours to match and the speed with which they are placed on the board. Eye-hand coordination and reaction time are put through vigorous testing as the player is required to keep all four corners of the mine cleared of diamonds. At a download price of only $0.99 from the App Store, Diamond Fever is a very affordable source of challenging entertainment, and as a fan of match 3 styles of games, I recommend it to others to try.