ZenGems
Encyclopedia
ZenGems is a standard color-matching game that was released by FreshGames
on August 9, 2007 where the player has to make combinations of three or more spheres of the same color. The game screen is a grid with a mouse-controlled ball shooter at the top that moves horizontally.
Former LucasArts
game designer Hal Barwood
known for several Star Wars
and Indiana Jones
titles of the early to mid 1990's designed several of the levels of ZenGems.
The game has three modes: Arcade, adventure and strategy. In the arcade mode the bottom half of the grid is underwater. The goal is to eliminate all the balls, obstacles and jewels that are over the water line.
Adventure mode is the only one with a storyline. A boy called Hoshiko must retrieve the medallions of virtue, stolen from the temples and hid inside puzzles by magician thieves. After solving the puzzle by eliminating all the spheres from the grid, a gold piece is put in its place, slowly rebuilding a complete medallion.
Strategy mode has no set goal, it is a resistance mode where the player can choose any of the worlds of adventure mode as the starting point and play until it is impossible to keep up with the game pace.
Besides the colored spheres, the grid is filled with other objects and power-ups. Jewels break when falling down two spaces or more, and crack when falling down one. Some balls are encased in boxes and immobile, they need to be matched to be released. Stones can only be broke with the fireball power-up. The fireball destroys three pieces in a row, but is ineffective against jewels. A ball with a curved arrow pushes a line of spheres before resting in its place. ColorBursts, jars with colored liquid, change the surrounding balls to its own color. Energy balls clear from a column all the spheres and boxes that have its color.
The grid is constantly refilled with balls. If they reach the top, the game is over.
gave ZenGems a perfect 5 star score stating that, "It never ceases to amaze me that developers can keep finding new and interesting ways to re-invent three-in-a-row gameplay. ZenGems, a simple yet addictive Asian-themed puzzle game from FreshGames, happens to be a particularly spectacular example."
FreshGames
FreshGames is a Columbus, Ohio based publisher and developer of casual, hand-held, and mobile games. It was formed in early 2002 by a group of gaming industry gamers. The company’s inspiration was to go back to an earlier time, when games weren’t so complicated, but just fun to play...
on August 9, 2007 where the player has to make combinations of three or more spheres of the same color. The game screen is a grid with a mouse-controlled ball shooter at the top that moves horizontally.
Former LucasArts
LucasArts
LucasArts Entertainment Company, LLC is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was once famous for its innovative line of graphic adventure games, the critical and commercial success of which peaked in the mid 1990s...
game designer Hal Barwood
Hal Barwood
Hal Barwood is an American game designer and game producer best known for his work on games based on the Indiana Jones license.Born in Hanover, New Hampshire, he studied art at Brown University and later attended the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television, where he met and...
known for several Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
and Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones
Colonel Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D. is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials...
titles of the early to mid 1990's designed several of the levels of ZenGems.
The game has three modes: Arcade, adventure and strategy. In the arcade mode the bottom half of the grid is underwater. The goal is to eliminate all the balls, obstacles and jewels that are over the water line.
Adventure mode is the only one with a storyline. A boy called Hoshiko must retrieve the medallions of virtue, stolen from the temples and hid inside puzzles by magician thieves. After solving the puzzle by eliminating all the spheres from the grid, a gold piece is put in its place, slowly rebuilding a complete medallion.
Strategy mode has no set goal, it is a resistance mode where the player can choose any of the worlds of adventure mode as the starting point and play until it is impossible to keep up with the game pace.
Besides the colored spheres, the grid is filled with other objects and power-ups. Jewels break when falling down two spaces or more, and crack when falling down one. Some balls are encased in boxes and immobile, they need to be matched to be released. Stones can only be broke with the fireball power-up. The fireball destroys three pieces in a row, but is ineffective against jewels. A ball with a curved arrow pushes a line of spheres before resting in its place. ColorBursts, jars with colored liquid, change the surrounding balls to its own color. Energy balls clear from a column all the spheres and boxes that have its color.
The grid is constantly refilled with balls. If they reach the top, the game is over.
Reception
Top Casual Games site GameZeboGamezebo
Gamezebo is a website that focuses on editorial coverage of the casual games industry, offering interviews, features, reviews, previews, strategy guides, news and podcasts....
gave ZenGems a perfect 5 star score stating that, "It never ceases to amaze me that developers can keep finding new and interesting ways to re-invent three-in-a-row gameplay. ZenGems, a simple yet addictive Asian-themed puzzle game from FreshGames, happens to be a particularly spectacular example."