Here's a link to The Infinite Cat Project: The Infinite Cat Project
8.0 excellent
It's time to pimp your coniferous! You're in too big of a rush to get your huge box of Christmas decorations down from the attic. And this tree is still in the ground, anyway. It's on the other side of the pond, in the clearing with the log cabin.
The Perfect Tree, from Anawiki Games, is a holiday-themed match-3 game. You've finally found an evergreen tree that (with some effort) might become the perfect Christmas tree, and you don't have the heart to cut it down and drag it into your cabin. So you decide to decorate it where it stands. Even as the snow is creating drifts around the clearing in the pine forest and Santa is sliding through the sky above, you continue hanging ornaments.
There aren't any clever twists or new gimmicks on display here, it's just a solid set of 110 match-3 levels with the same gameplay mechanic match-3 fans have come to expect: The game board is a grid filled with holiday tiles, from Santa hats to bells to pieces of chocolate cake to snowflakes to gift boxes. And more. You can swap any two adjacent tiles on the board... but only if the swap results in three or more of the same tiles being positioned in a row. The game pieces in this match you've created will disappear from the board, with new tiles dropping in from above to fill in the gap.
Most tiles rest on a blue sheet of ice. But some tiles are in squares with icy purple backgrounds. Clearly that's no good. Making a match over one of these purple ice sheets will shatter it. Once every inch of the game board is changed to blue, the level ends. Sometimes the purple ice has a gold plate protecting it, and before you can change that square to blue you'll have to make two matches there. Sometimes chains hold a tile in place, making it impossible to swap. You'll have to swap the pieces around it to include it in a match and break the chains. Naturally some tiles are doubly chained and require two matches to gain their freedom.
As usual with match-3 games, tiles that fall into match formation are also removed, creating fun chain reaction matches. Thus the best strategy is to focus on the bottom of the game board and let gravity and luck take care of the top half.
Bonus powerup tiles appear on the board randomly when you create particularly impressive matches. Fire crackers, big double firecrackers, bombs, big bombs, etc. destroy various amounts of pieces when they explode. Snow storms remove random tiles from the board. As you advance through the levels more and more impressive powerups become available. All can be double-clicked to activate in-place, or be swapped to activate in a neighboring spot.
For every sheet of purple ice you shatter the game awards you one star. If you're playing in timed mode you might also receive bonus stars based on how quickly you can finish a level. These stars are used to purchase the decorations for your Christmas tree. Cheap round ornaments cost only a handful of stars each, while more expensive decorations like glowing bulbs and even presents start at around 50 stars each. Between match-3 levels you're given a chance to spend whatever stars you've collected on decorations. (Or you can wait until you've won more if you'd rather save them for a later expensive purchase.) Purchased decorations can be dragged wherever you like onto your tree, thus personalizing it.
The Perfect Tree isn't going to blow your car off the road with anything fresh and inventive, but what it does it does particularly well. The match-3 gameplay is as smooth as silk and very responsive. The festive holiday game pieces are all beautiful (I'd love to stuff one of those pieces of chocolate cake into my mouth!) and wiggle when you click on them. The game allows you to continue making matches while tiles are still falling onto the board, like the best of match-3 games. The pseudo-Christmas music is atmospheric enough, though I must admit I prefer real Christmas tunes instead of Christmas melodies that have been altered (perhaps for royalty reasons - why do holiday games always do this?)
Only one thing is missing: some of my favorite match-3 games allow you to selectively remove tiles that have become particularly vexing. For example, tiles that are enclosed by gaps on three sides and not easily matched, or trapped at the bottom of the game board. Without this ability it's easy to become stuck on one single tile, hoping that just by chance you'll get a big bomb or big double firecracker within range... or perhaps that a snow storm will - by happenstance - choose that tile to blow away.