K3Y

Puzzle games are designed challenge your ability to find solutions and understand gameplay mechanics, but sometimes that is not enough to keep players engaged. Hence, new ideas must be included every now and again to keep people interested, because basic match-three flicks can only be fun for so long. Naturally, it’s not easy to do that nowadays, but it’s not impossible either.

K3Y is a fairly unique puzzle game with some match-three mechanics in there as well, in which the goal is to collect keys by destroying the rings that encapsulate them. To make things even better, you have to use physics to your advantage in order to score combos, which is not easy to achieve. Thus, there’s a fair amount of challenge here even for experienced puzzle lovers.

There’s not much of a story running in the background, but then again this is hardly the type of game one would play for the narrative. Instead, you have to focus on learning the mechanics first, and thankfully there’s a helpful tutorial to get you started. In short, the goal is to get three keys near each other in order to collect them, but these keys are trapped inside one or more colorful rings.

In order to remove these keys, you have to drop balls of the same color on top of them. The levels get more intricate later on as well, because more and more rings make an appearance, so you really have to think ahead and coordinate your moves accordingly. In fact, most stages can be completed with a single, well-placed shot, but you are not forced to go the extra mile if you are not aiming for a high score.

Given the simple mechanics, the graphics are nothing out of the ordinary either, but the smooth colors and the nice backgrounds are enough to provide you with a pleasant experience. The controls are very straightforward as well, since you only need to use a mouse in order to aim and shoot the colorful balls, which means that you do not have to struggle with key bindings or anything of the sort.

Even if the mechanics can get a bit repetitive after a point, K3Y is still a pretty neat concept, especially if you are bored with the usual match-three games. Hence, it’s worth a try if you consider yourself a puzzle fan.

NOTE: This is a downloader for the game. Once run, the application will automatically download and install the game on your computer.

To buy the product you need to register with Big Fish. The registration is free and the account will let you earn free games, play community games or participate in game forums, write reviews as well as offer you significant discounts.