Cronk by Cronk Games is a refreshing take on the popular puzzle game format of stopping a set of coloured shapes from falling and bringing up those awful letters ‘GAME OVER ‘. The shapes in this case are boulders, and you take on the role of hero caveman Cronk who just refuses to let the caveman villages be overrun by Pebbles Cereal (okay, so they ‘re really just coloured boulders). You control Cronk and throw coloured boulders at the oncoming snake of stone and reduce them to rubble by matching three or more similarly coloured boulders.
It ‘s both an interesting and breakfast-related premise that you ‘ll want to hit the jump to see (pics and video!) and read more about.
Ye olde quick look
Now that you ‘ve seen that
One thing I didn ‘t get to in the video was the more advanced bits of gameplay via the power-ups. There are four power-ups that come from the boulders, and one from Cronk. Every once in a lucky while Cronk will hold a glowing ball that can count as any colour “ a real boon for making a quick combo. The pause, bomb, bonus points, and reverse power-ups are activated by triggering them in a combo. So if you set off a green boulder with a bomb icon on it, all the adjacent boulders will suddenly go boom. Reverse will make them retreat (boulder style), pause will stop them in their tracks, and the bonus points well, I ‘ll let you guess what the bonus points do. Careful though “ these special power-ups only stay for so long on the boulders, so you ‘ve got to activate them before they disappear (oh no!).
The video demo above was played only on easy mode, aka Ragart mode. Easy mode makes sure you get a lot of the same coloured boulders together in a line and gives Cronk exactly the colour he ‘ll need to rack up big combos and lots of points. Hard mode isn ‘t even remotely as kind and the strings of incoming boulders are a lot longer. It also really shows off the more advanced thinking that this game requires, as you ‘ll have to balance your priorities carefully. If you don ‘t take out the first string of boulders quickly they ‘ll end up completely blocking Cronk ‘s shots at the next waves. When it gets to that point things really aren ‘t looking good for the tribal village, so I suggest you say your goodbyes.
The game also gets you thinking in the same way Tetris does “ do you want to eliminate all the boulders as they come, or do you want to try to plan a bit and line up combos of five or more boulders so you can really rake in the points? Frankly, I was too busy panicking and throwing random boulders during the demo video to do much actual thinking.
Is it iPhone Friendly?
I know that ‘s a weird header, but bear with me. By iPhone friendly, I mean to address issues like ‘does it autosave? ‘ and ‘can I play music while gaming? ‘. Fortunately, the answers to both those questions is a resounding yes 🙂 It doesn ‘t sound like a big deal, but it ‘s a real pain when your game just gets nuked because you received an SMS or had to take a phone call.
Conclusion
The game features eight levels with various winding paths and either one or two tribal villages to defend. It ‘s a good amount of variety, and it ‘s one of those games you ‘ll want to keep playing so you can beat your previous high score (Bejeweled or Brick Breaker players know that feeling well).
The price of $4.99 might be just a dollar too high, though. I think $3.99 would be a sweet spot for an entertaining game that doesn ‘t change or progress in any other fashion aside from score and difficulty level. Either way, if you like the looks of the gameplay (or like Pebbles cereal) and like the puzzler genre at all, then I think you ‘ll be quite happy with Cronk.
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You can find Cronk for $4.99 on the App Store.
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