The streak has been broken! Today’s bigfishgames.com Game of the Day is a match 3 game. Match 3 games are self-explanatory but if you’ve never played one, I’ll help you out. You’re given a board with various squares on it. You have to find at least 3 like items linked together that you can click on & they will clear off the board. Usually, there are bonus items like potions or bombs that are scattered on the board that you can click on to clear large sections for you. Once you’ve cleared the whole board, you’ve won the level. An example of a match 3 game is Candy Crush. If you’ve played that, you’ve played a match 3 game.
To be honest, it’s hard to make a match 3 game exciting unless things happen between levels. It sounds like that’s what Big Fish Games is trying to do here with Secrets of the Vikings: Mystery Island. They’ve given you a bit of a back story about Finnja & a band of Vikings going on a journey to find one of the warriors. After being caught in a storm, they end up stranded on an island & have to overcome challenges. You get to build a Viking Village, there are bonus levels, power-ups, trophies to earn, bonus hidden objects, even mahjongg & solitaire. This is not a Collector’s Edition & there is 60-minutes of free game play.
That was a fast hour! I played the entire 60-minute of free game play & was sorry to see it end. In Secrets of the Vikings: Mystery Island, you swap squares to make your links of a minimum of 3 matches to begin clearing the board. There are bombs you can swap with squares to help clear large sections when you don’t have other matches to make & those come in handy! You’ll notice at the bottom of some levels, there are goals for some of the symbols. Your job is to collect a certain number of that symbol because it will be used as a resource. Remember, you’re a Viking stuck on an island so having resources like food & weapons will come in handy. You also collect coins to buy things for your village. Again, remember you’re building that Viking village. Those coins are necessary to buy buildings so match those as much as you can.
Let’s talk about the mini games. It started with one & that confused me! When you’re told you’re playing a match 3 game & the first thing you get is a hidden object game, you start to question whether Big Fish Games knew if they categorized this one right. After I sat there for a minute or two wondering what was going on, I played the level & moved on & the match 3 games did begin. There is a solitaire type mini game & it’s ok but super easy to win. All you have to do is clear the cards off the board while removing them in sequential order. In the 60-minutes of free play, I feel like those are the only 2 I encountered.
If you’re looking for a match 3 game with a bit of a mission, some challenge to the boards and not a lot of interruption by mini games then this is the one for you. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to buy it but it will stay on my radar.
