Mobile Gaming: Blendoku
Genre: Puzzle
Developer: Lonely Few
Platform: Android, iOS
A review by Amelia Wellman
Blendoku is a puzzle game based on color principles that will challenge your ability to distinguish and arrange colors. Blend your way to beating the world average, beating your personal best, or go for a perfect score for those perfectionists out there! Play through hundreds of levels with a wide gamut of difficulty. The game is a mix of Sudoku, crossword puzzles, flow, and pantone all mixed in one!
The gameplay of Blendoku is super simple. You’re presented with a grid, above the grid are your colours to put in order. Simply drag and drop the colours into the grid, and if you’ve put them in the right order, you win. If not, keep dragging and dropping.
There are 475 levels included in the free download with a wide gamut of difficulty: simple, medium, hard, and master. The gradual rise in difficulty offers a challenge while never becoming too frustrating. There isn’t anything within the game designed to increase frustrations to sell in-app purchases, all you need is a good eye for colours and some patience.
For anyone looking to add a timed element to their puzzle solving there’s a badge for beating the world average time on each puzzle, along with a badge for doing them perfectly. There are also worldwide score boards you can check out and possibly conquer!
What sets Blendoku apart from other puzzle games is the ability to do the puzzles in any order you please. If you can’t beat a level, no problem, just skip it and go to the next! Nothing is locked so nothing is linear.
Blendoku does have a few micro-transactions and ads throughout. If you’re having a difficult time with a puzzle, there’s a tool that will lock a colour down so you absolutely know it goes in a certain spot. You can wait every twenty-four hours for one of these “solves” to appear, or you can buy some in the store. There are also level packs available for around $3 if you want to expand your Blendoku experience and completely get rid of the ads.
As for the ads themselves, they’re not horribly intrusive. A banner ad at the top of the screen will follow you from level to level, but there’s no in between level pop-ups or unskippable auto-play videos.
The Verdict
Play it! I will admit that I’m a little biased because I love puzzle games that have to do with colour in any form. I see colours really well and I play that as a strength! But besides my own preferences, Blendoku is amazingly fun and definitely addictive. It mixes simple gameplay and difficult challenges the perfect amount and that leads to the “just one more puzzle” mentality of perfect mobile gaming!
