App Insiders

An interesting new take on a tried and true formula.

Virtually all of you, after taking a quick peek at the screenshots below, probably already have a pretty good idea of what StoneLoops is all about. It’s the addictive marble flinging fun, commonly enjoyed on one’s mobile phone that brings to mind games like Zuma and Bonsai Blast. However, this new rendition of the popular puzzle game does breath a small amount of new air into the genre through it’s various small innovations and admirable production values. I’m sure most you have already minimized this window and bought the game based purely on the off-chance that it may feature dinosaurs, but for those you who are little harder to convince, read on.

Stone Loops in action

So, as stated above, what we have here, when it really comes down to it, is more or less Zuma with an alluring prehistoric theme. As per usual, there’s an abundance of marbles that travel through the paths carved out for them, and it’s you’re job is to stop them from reaching the end of those paths. The way you complete this task is by maneuvering your marble shooter (in this case some sort of stone-age cradle that you control through touch) left and right across the bottom of the screen, firing coloured marbles at those moving along the path. By matching a minimum of three coloured marbles of the same colour you can cause these marbles to explode, thus disrupting their movement and those of the marbles around them, and contributing towards your final objective of preventing them from reaching their goal (the large dinosaur skull at the end of their path).

On the verge of losing

It’s a very well established and fun staple of the puzzle genre, so it isn’t like they could go too far wrong with the game. In order to prevent myself from covering information most of you are already aware of, for the remainder of the review I’ll be focusing on things that set StoneLoops! apart from its competitors.

I’ve found the main difference between this game and those like it is in the way special attacks and bonus points are distributed. When you achieve an especially significant combo, instead of simply awarding you with additional points or a special attack, you have to ‘catch’ these power-ups as they are first flung in the air and subsequently fall past your marble shooter. This may sound insignificant, but as you have to do this on a regular basis, it certainly adds a feeling of action to a type of game that can sometimes become quite docile and repetitive.

Positioning myself to 'catch' a lightning powerup

The attacks themselves range from things such as lightning blasts and fireballs that affect large numbers of marbles at a time, to multicolored marbles that help in the creation of additional combos.

Apart from a few other gameplay quirks here and there, StoneLoops’ other significant advantages lie in its highly polished presentation, graphics, sound and the sheer amount of content that the developers have crammed into the title. It features 75 levels playable across two game modes, an additional 15 bonus levels per game mode and 24 unlockable trophies. There’s certainly plenty of replayability built into the package.

As you progress further in the game you unlock upgrades to a series of five houses, with one house for each environment type you encounter. I honestly have no idea why this was included in the game as it seems rather pointless.

Sadly, players don’t have the option to play their own music during play, which is a disappointment for somebody like myself who plays the game regularly on their daily commute. I’ll just have to deal with listening to the tribal beats that come standard with the package, which, don’t get me wrong, aren’t in anyway unpleasant, but quite frankly don’t live up to my usual musical diet of constant Radiohead.

The quality of the maps is probably also worth a mention, but to be honest, they’re really nothing that we haven’t seen before. Don’t misunderstand me, they’re good, but just not terribly unique.

The Last Word

Stone Loops! Of Jurrasica, if you’ll pardon the poorly punctuated name, is a first-class application designed with those who enjoy arcade/puzzle games clearly in mind. While it doesn’t deviate too much from the more traditional Zuma/Bonsai Blast style of marble gameplay, it does so just enough and with such style as to warrant any puzzle-lovers purchase.

(You’ll notice in this post that the screenshots don’t feature the regular “AI” watermark, this is because this was originally written by myself for another site, but never got published)