Sweetiki

Even the simplest match-three game can get you hooked if it features smooth controls and enough levels to take your mind off things. Moving colorful pieces around in order to get points is indeed a zombie-like activity, but that can be exactly what you need after a hard day. Granted, sometimes that’s not enough, since it’s also nice to take on a challenge.

Sweetiki is not a particularly impressive match-three game, given the fact that it features very basic mechanics and almost no variation whatsoever when it comes to level design or the story. Instead, all you have to do is keep making matches and obtain the required number of points in order to unlock the next level. As you may imagine, this gets boring in a matter of minutes.

You perform the matches by clicking and holding over tiles of the same color, and you can go in any direction, even diagonally. This makes it easier to obtain points, but it’s worth noting that you cannot go back if you happen to pick the wrong route, which is very infuriating sometimes. The motion is too repetitive in the long run, because it feels like you are doing nothing most of the time.

As mentioned before, you have to obtain a certain number of points before the timer runs out, which is not always easy. There’s no way to play in a more relaxed way and turn off the time limit, so the game is pretty stressful most of the time. Thankfully, at least you can make use of a few power-ups that pop up every now and again, as well as a handful of special abilities.

Lastly, the graphics fail to impress as well, but they don’t matter as much in the case of a match-three game anyway. Every level layout is the same, on the other hand, which is the real problem, because there’s no sense of achievement when you manage to unlock a new stage. The music gets on your nerves after mere minutes, but at least it can be disabled with a simple click.

In the end, Sweetiki does not have what it takes to keep you busy for more than a few minutes, which is not good news for a match-three game. Hence, it might work as a temporary distraction, but it loses its appeal far too quickly.