Dr.Pilly

It doesn’t take much for a video game to become addictive, as long as it features the right kind of gameplay mechanics. In order to keep the players happy and glued to the screen, they must be provided with a constant challenge, as well as a reason to keep getting better and better. Whether it’s a high score system or an online ladder, it’s always a good idea to include something to inspire the crowds.

Dr.Pilly is about as simple as it can get under the circumstances, and it features a handful of levels to get you hooked from the first couple of minutes. In essence, your role is to destroy the viruses sitting at the bottom of the screen, by matching them with colored blocks. When four or more blocks are matched, they are cleared from the board, just like in the classic game of Tetris.

There is no background story to provide you with information on anything, but there’s obviously no need to do so anyway. All you need to know is that the viruses have to go away, which is the natural course of things in most cases. Everything is brightly colored and cheerful, on the other hand, even the viruses themselves, which are cute and smiling all the way to the end.

Gameplay-wise, everything is exactly the way it was in Tetris, with the only difference being the pieces. These come in binary combinations only, and there are three colors you have to keep track of. Naturally, the blocks can be rotated in every position, which allows you to come up with creative ways to clear lines. On the other hand, there are only so many combinations you can achieve, so it is a real challenge to find the right solution sometimes.

Thankfully, you are rewarded for being creative and stubborn, because the high scores can be published online and compared to other players. There is a top you can aim for, where the best fifty scores are displayed for everyone to see. It takes a lot of practice to get there, but it’s definitely worth the trouble, at least if you are the type to aim for the best possible results.

In the end, Dr.Pilly is not full of innovative content, but it has what it needs to make you utter the “One more round” sentence. Thanks to that, you can easily lose yourself for a few hours every now and again, at least if you do not mind the repetitive gameplay.