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Green Jelly
Score: 78%
ESRB: 4+
Publisher: G5 Entertainment
Developer: MaxNick
Media: Download/1
Players: 1
Genre: Puzzle

Graphics & Sound:
Green Jelly takes the typical trajectory-based physics puzzle game and adds a couple of changes that puts some interesting spins on what could otherwise be another ho-hum casual game.

Green Jelly puts you into various 2D locations with a few different themes. While these themes have a nice way of changing the look of the levels you are playing in, they don't do much to change the feel of the actual gameplay that is going on. By no means is this a bad thing, but it means that the backdrops of each level are little more than simply that, backdrops. If, for instance, each type of level actually caused some change to the physics being used, like a change in friction or something, then the fact that you were in a cake-themed location might feel radically different than a waffle theme.

While the game's visuals change between themes, the music is pretty much the same throughout and it wasn't long before I found myself simply turning the game's sound off. This was especially true in the game's first world since it had spinning buzz saws that emitted a high-pitched squeal that was unnerving.


Gameplay:
Green Jelly has you controlling the titular character that can stretch and squish and be launched from his various precarious purchases in order to grab all the pickups and get to the level's exit location.

Each level has several anchor spots scattered about the screen and when Jelly touches one of these, he sticks to it. You can stretch him between multiple spots if they are close enough, and you can swipe your finger to disconnect Jelly from an anchor. This, combined with the ability to pull him back and launch him in a direction, is how you will get Jelly through the assortment of slicing, dicing and electrocuting obstacles that this puzzle game presents to the player.

Currently, there are three worlds available: Cake, Chocolate and Waffle. Like I said above, there isn't really any difference between these themes. In all of them, you are trying to launch Jelly to various anchor points in order to grab the three pickups and then get to the exit location. The only real difference, besides the background images, is that the Cake levels have spinning buzz saws positioned around the gameboards, Chocolate has electrical currents that will shock Jelly, and Waffle introduces trampolines that look like pies to help change your trajectory mid-flight.

As for the pickups, these gumballs are used to not only help maximize your score for each level, but you won't be able to progress to the next theme unless you collect enough of them in each theme.


Difficulty:
With a few exceptions, I rarely found a challenge in any of Green Jelly's levels. There were a couple of times when I found myself going back to earlier levels in order to grab all three gumballs, but there weren't that many times when a level actually forced me to retry it so many times that I simply gave up and moved on to the next challenge.

From beginning to end, I found that I was always able to see the path the developers expected me to take in order to get all three gumballs and exit the level. From there, it's just a matter of timing the shots to avoid moving buzzsaws or intermittent electrical shocks. While I enjoyed the game, I never saw it as a challenge, and anyone who has put any time into similar games should find Green Jelly's difficulty at about the same level that I did.


Game Mechanics:
Green Jelly's stretch and launch mechanics might feel like a natural extension of every other physics game's slingshot system, but there is a different feel when you attach Jelly to two or three points before actually pulling him back and launching him. The mechanic gets a bit more complicated when Jelly is attached between two anchors orbiting around each other since the actual trajectory Jelly will fly is constantly changing. When you couple that moving arch with the obstacles laid out across the level, timing becomes a much more necessary skill than most other games that fall into Green Jelly's genre.

All things considered, I enjoyed Green Jelly enough to recommend it to any casual gamer looking for an Angry Birds alternative. While there isn't too much variety yet, there is the promise of future levels and hopefully we will see some interesting combinations of obstacles in the next theme.


-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications
AKA Chris Meyer

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