Sometimes it takes an original game concept to put the bounce back into our step. In the case of Obulis, it’s simply the idea of cutting a few ropes and watching colored balls fall, bounce and roll through increasingly complicated levels. IonFX has had plenty of experience in making these cunning physics-based puzzles, since there have been two previous Obulis games for mobile devices. But this is the first outing for Obulis on our PC screens, and we can only ask: what took you guys so long? This game is great!

The key to a great puzzle game is not to make the controls too complicated. The very heart of the game is about getting balls to fall through a level in the right way - and the success of Peggle proves that it’s a winning concept. However, in the case of Obulis, the end goal is to get all the red balls into the red pot, all the blue balls into the blue pot, and so on. Sure enough, each level may consist of a series of strategically placed balls hanging from various ropes or chains, as well as platforms, ramps, catapults, cannons and other devices, but the player only has control over one thing: which ropes get cut at which times. With just a few simple clicks you will send the balls rolling and knocking into each other, which, if you’ve planned your clicks right, will lead to a chain reaction that will send all the colored balls into the correct pots. It’s a simple concept but there are a lot of puzzle levels to be made out of it - over 150 of them, in fact.

Each level is rated by its difficulty - up to 5 stars - and as you progress through the game you can choose different paths to follow, each leading to different levels. This way, you won’t get thrown into the deep end until you’re skilled enough, and you still can control which puzzles you want to try first. There are different themed levels with environments such as Garden, Desert, Clockworks and Waterfall, each with different devices that affect how the balls move around. The Garden level is perhaps my favorite, with lovely colored flowers taking the place of the pots that you have to land the balls in. The graphics immerse you in Zen-like beauty in each level, and the music is entrancing enough that you don’t mind that you have to keep listening to it over and over while you try to figure out a particularly hard level.

Once you get the hang of the game, it can become maddeningly addictive, as you try to figure out which ball is going to hit the other at the right time, and which rope is going to swing when you cut the other one. The designers have made each level so that there really is only one chain reaction that will guarantee winning, so it can be a tough job to figure out which one it is. At least the designers were kind enough to provide a hint system for those of us who flunked high school Physics!

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(3 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)

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