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7.9 excellent
Some people hear the word "rhombus" and get nervous because they think a geometer might be lurking nearby. That's understandable.
If you're like me, you've had an empty spot in your life since Tetris disappeared. Tetris may never come back to us, but at least Irbis Games has created a Tetris-like game, Rhombis, that can temporarily fill that hole in your life.
I hate colored bricks. They're a nuisance and a menace. They've caused nothing but trouble in every single game they've appeared in since their invention in 1973. The bricks in Rhombis are squares turned at 45 degrees. Note that that doesn't make them any less of a brick. They look like diamonds (and inside the game are called diamonds), and as squares are also technically "rhombi" (that's how you say "rhombuses" if you're a know-it-all). Hence the name of the game. The goal in each level is to explode all the money bricks. These are special colored bricks marked with dollar signs. Shapes made up of three rhombuses will fall from the top of the screen and you can move them from side to side and rotate them, just as in Tetris. If they land in a position which creates a straight line of three or more same colored bricks, those bricks will explode. Explode all the dollar sign bricks, and you've won the level.
Rhombis takes place on a man-made satellite orbitting a red gas giant. Behind the game display you can clearly see a gray moon and what appears to be some sort of huge green nebula. Later on a space ship flies by. Not a very friendly or cheery atmosphere. You'd think there would be bunny icons to offset the cold space theme, but there aren't.
The first thing you'll notice about the game's playing field is that the container that holds the bricks is also angled at 45 degrees. When you make matches and explode bricks, the other bricks slide towards the lowest corner of the container. Since the walls are slanted, they slide closer together, too. Sometimes this results in new matches and explosions, which can be satisfying and make you feel clever like you planned them in advance. But let's be honest: you didn't.
It takes a while before you're able to predict how pieces will react when new gaps are formed and how best to make matches with squares turned at an angle. And once you think you've figured it out, the game starts throwing invisible bricks into the mix. And bricks that shoot at the piece you're trying to manuever carefully into just the right spot.
As is usual in these types of games, there are a variety of special bricks to help and hinder you. The most common special brick is the bomb brick. When made part of a match, it blows up with enough force to destroy all the bricks around it, too. Good riddance, bricks! Some bricks are armored, and require being in two matches before they're destroyed. Some are simply unbreakable, and must be worked around. Cloner bricks change the surrounding bricks to their color. Conductor bricks destroy bricks of the same color if they touch its top and bottom corners. Hyper conductors destroy all surrounding bricks if bricks of the same color touch their top and bottom corners. Both of these bricks cannot themselves be destroyed, unless they're dropped to the bottom of the playing field - at which point they'll detonate. They can be hypersawed, however. The glowing, sparkly hypersaw cuts through any brick in its way as it drops to the bottom of the screen.
As you progress through the eighty levels, you'll have to be quick on your feet to drop the shapes you're given in just the right spot to make room for additional incoming bricks. The playing field can get crowded if you make too many mistakes! If rhombuses backup too far and there's no more room for new ones, the game will end with you as the loser and the bricks as the winner. Don't let that happen.
Excepting the flashy plasma particle effects, the bricks and backgrounds look like an Amiga game from 1993, and the soothing techno soundtrack sounds like an Amiga MOD from 1993. But that was a good year for the Amiga, and Rhombis is addicting and fun. If you like Tetris you may find yourself hooked. If you're reading this back in the early nineties on your Amiga, this game is going to blow you away. Also, contact me and I'll tell you the outcome of various sporting events.
