Glow Artisan - Review - Noland Rowend

Glow Artisan - Review (Image - 1)

Glow Artisan was first released in Dec of 2009 equally DSiWare for the ubiquitous Nintendo DSi handheld gaming device. Information technology was received with fantastic reviews from nearly every critic and gamer to give information technology a go.

If anything, Glow Artisan is a bit overwhelming and fantastic. Powerhead Games has synthetic a puzzle game with such depth and scale that every other game within the same genre has been put to shame. I mean, in that location are puzzle games and and so there's Glow Artisan. A puzzle game'due south puzzle game. Now that Glow Artisan has been ported to WP7 every bit part of the library of Xbox Alive Arcade games we'll have to see how well this conundrum translates to a single screen. So far, things look fantastically overwhelming.

Read on to notice out why.

Glow Artisan is a puzzle game of creating patterns out of rows and columns of iii dissimilar colors - red, blue, and yellow. The basics of the game are amazingly simple. Colors can exist combined to brand purple, orange, greenish, and white (colour theorists simply lost their minds) by combining all three colors. Rows of color can be deleted and recolored or recolor-combined at any time. Uncomplicated rules are easy to follow and all the initial levels get over them at a boring and steady, "Are you getting this?" pace.

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There'due south no limit to how many moves you lot can brand and there'southward no clock you need race confronting to solve each puzzle. You are being timed though, and each puzzle has a minimum fourth dimension and set of moves that you must meet or beat to earn a Bronze, Silver, or Gold medal. Believe me, yous'll blow past the first fifteen minutes to one-half hour of Glow Artisan thinking it's no challenge at all. You lot'll be earning medals and unlocking bonus puzzles and earning pieces of trophies in no time at all.

And so you lot'll move from Novice to Amateur to the harder Artisan puzzles and begin questioning how you'll ever become a Master. Yous have the pick of letting the game solve a puzzle for you up to iii times a day merely y'all won't earn whatsoever of the rewards by letting the game go y'all passed them. Y'all need to earn your trophy pieces to advance to the harder levels. Glow Artisan too provides some fun relief from it'south many challenging puzzles in the main menu.

The puzzle gallery is a showcase of all the puzzles you've already solved. Y'all tin replay them equally often every bit you lot'd similar and earn a better medal. In that location is also a randomize-r that generates a completely new and random puzzle on the spot. Feeling crafty? Y'all tin create your own puzzles too. Most surprising feature? Glow Artisan has access to your camera and photo albums. You tin can brand puzzles based on your ain photos or accept a new photo on the spot to create a new puzzle. Granted, the puzzles wait nothing at all similar your photograph, and it'south pretty much a gimmick to keep you playing, but it's pretty neat that it's fifty-fifty in there.

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This is exactly how Glow Artisan sets itself apart from every other puzzle game. Information technology doesn't simply agree your hand and evidence you the fashion just it likewise stands abreast you to help earlier casting you into the puzzley burn down. Even though each and every choice in Glow Artisan just leads to another board of colors that need to exist rearranged, the options are there, and that extends gameplay a great deal. Hell, there's even an choice that players can toggle on or off to make the blocks change into lines and shapes to rearrange instead of colors for people who may be colorblind.

The but thing lacking in Glow Artisan is music. There is none. In that location are sound furnishings for each movement of colour or a ping for level completion and a trumpeted reward melody for medals and trophies but that's near it. Yous tin even plough those sounds off if you lot don't like them. I oft played forth to whatever music I had Zune playing. I call up information technology made for a amend experience. [Update: PowerHead Games let us know via Twitter that they have submitted an update to Glow Artisan with music. Look for information technology soon. -ed.]

I tend to fare quite well with puzzle games and this was a scattering for me. Glow Artisan is lots of fun, exceptionally robust, and a keen challenge for fifty-fifty the most experienced conundrum.

Grab the game here (opens Zune Desktop)

An internet connection will soon be required when setting up Windows 11 Pro

UH OH

An internet connectedness will soon exist required when setting upward Windows 11 Pro

Microsoft has announced that later this yr, users will be required to connect to the internet and sign-in with a Microsoft Account during the out of box setup feel on Windows 11 Pro. Microsoft has already been enforcing this requirement on Windows 11 Dwelling house since launch last October, and Windows 11 Pro is now expected to follow suit shortly.