Truffula Shuffula Review: Bejeweled With a Dr. Seuss Twist

NBC Universal's animated feature The Lorax is now in theaters. The movie, which is based on Dr. Seuss's popular children's book, hit theaters accompanied by some fun, free apps, such as The Official Lorax App and Truffula Shuffula.

The free Truffula Shuffula is a match-three game, similar to Bejeweled. The game is extremely simple, and it doesn't have a lot of content, but it is executed and rendered well. That nice execution will cost you, though, in space--the app is a whopping 21MB, which is pretty big for a casual game.

Truffula Shuffula is meant to be a companion app for the movie. If you haven't seen the movie (or read the book), here's a quick summary: The Lorax is a small, mustached creature who "speaks for the [Truffula] trees" against the Once-ler. The Once-ler (who represents large, environmentally unfriendly corporations) tells the story of how he arrived in a world full of beautiful Truffula trees. As he began cutting down the trees to make factories, the Lorax popped up and told him that it was a bad idea. The Once-ler ignored the Lorax and kept cutting down the trees, and eventually the world became a polluted, awful place.

Of course, the game has little to do with the story. In Truffula Shuffula, you see a grid of objects, some of which are whimsical, whirly Truffula trees, and some of which are marshmallows, hot-chocolate swirls, and cherries. Your goal is to switch objects to create lines of three or more like objects. When you successfully match three objects, those objects disappear and more objects fall from the top of the screen.

The "Shuffula" part of the game comes in when you run out of moves. When you can no longer switch any objects to create a matching line, you can tap the Truffula Shuffula button to mix up the objects on the board. You get three Shuffulas per game, and you can use them at any time. However, it's probably a good idea to wait until you have no moves left (a running counter at the bottom of the screen tells you how many moves are possible on the board).

That's pretty much the entire game. As you advance in score, you move up in levels, though the levels don't become significantly harder even when new objects are introduced. The game is well executed, and the graphics are excellent. A mild soundtrack plays in the background, along with brighter sound effects, and when you perform particularly well you may see the Lorax pop up to congratulate you. The game runs smoothly, too, though it does drain battery life quickly.

If you like match-three games, Truffula Shuffula is both addictive and attractive. I'm not sure if it's great as a casual game, because of its resource-heavy nature, but it's definitely cute for kids and adults alike.

We tested this app using a Samsung Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.0.2.

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Bejeweled 2 Review: The Game You Know and Love Comes to Android

I could start off by saying that Bejeweled 2 is a match-three game--but really, Bejeweled 2 is the match-three game.

For those of you who have never played a match-three game, the rules are pretty simple: Bejeweled 2 presents you with a board full of multicolored gems, and you have to swap adjacent gems to form rows of three or more matching gems. Depending on which mode you're playing, you're either trying to meet a quota of gem-matches or attempting to beat the clock. If you get stuck, Bejeweled 2 will point out two swappable gems (you can also use the hint button, though the game will dock some of your time if you do so).

If you manage to match four or more jewels, you produce a special gem that can blast away all the surrounding gems, or zap all of the gems on the board that are the same color.

Bejeweled 2 for Android is pretty addictive, and it looks great. The graphics are excellent, if a bit random (as they always have been). Behind your board you'll see a variety of fantastical landscapes, and when you beat a level you fly through a colorful warp tunnel. It's confusing but whimsical, which I assume is part of the appeal.

Though this game is good, it's not perfect. For example, while it has plenty of game modes (Classic, Action, and Endless), it doesn't have the newer Blitz mode. In Classic mode, you play until you run out of combinations; in Action mode, you try to make enough matches to beat the timer; and in Endless mode, you just play…forever. Blitz mode, a popular addition in both the Facebook game and the iPhone app, is a timed mode in which you see how many matches you can make in 1 minute. This is probably the most intriguing mode of play--it's short, snappy, and competitive--so I'm not sure why PopCap decided to omit it from the Android version.

The app also seems to be somewhat resource-heavy, and it runs slowly and occasionally crashes if you're running other programs in the background.

Still, Bejeweled 2 is a gorgeous, addictive app that's worth checking out.

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