Spin And Drag Life Into An Old Classic In Gem Spinner II
Gem Spinner II (Free) by Tiny Bite Games is an all new take on "Bejeweled," which adds real depth and strategy requiring a great deal more thought and creativity. Just when you thought a fantastic pastime couldn’t get better, someone comes up with an app that breathes life into an old game.
The game is partly played as usual where three or more gems of the same color must be aligned vertically or horizontally. Aligned gems are destroyed, earning you points and causing more gems to drop down on to the board.
The major difference in this game is the board itself. The gems are distributed on pieces of board rather than the one large board that we are all accustomed to. Those pieces can be rearranged by spinning them (through 180 degrees) or by dragging them to a different location.
The pieces start off as simple shapes such as squares and rectangles, but rapidly become more complicated as you move through the various levels. They can be made to look like plus and minus signs, snakes, stars or even a man and his dog.
Gems cannot be dragged between pieces, but can be dragged from one cell to the next within a given piece. All the cells in the pieces start off being lightly colored. As gems are destroyed at a certain location, the cells found there darken. When all the cells of a piece of board have been darkened, that piece will disappear.
There is a timer to be aware of (unless you choose casual mode), but it gives quite a long time to solve the puzzle and every time a match is made and gems are destroyed, the timer is reset. This is extremely fortunate as there are times when finding how to rearrange pieces and gems can take a good long time because of how complicated the setup is.
The vertical timer is color-coded with green at the top when lots of time remains, going to yellow and finally red as time runs out. When the timer hits the yellow part, tiny suns begin appearing between the pieces. They act as obstacles which block you from moving or spinning those pieces.
By the time the timer has run to zero, you can have up to seven suns in play. These are quite easy to remove, however. Just make a match, the timer is reset and one sun is removed.
At higher levels, further obstacles are introduced such as black broken gems which cannot be matched and can be removed only by darkening that piece’s other cells in the normal way.
Gem Spinner II is incredibly unique and absorbing. It’s one of those “easy to learn, hard to master” games that we all seem to love so much. With a plethora of levels, it will keep you engaged and (most likely) stumped for a long time.
