Pandalicious – experience this relaxing yet Addictive Puzzle game
by Paul Wilks
Apr 11, 2012 2:28 PM –
Install
Pandalicious is a beautiful and fun puzzle game that puts you deep in a forest of bamboo and zen. By rotating hexagonal units, create long vine-paths to accumulate more points. Relaxed, challenging or addictive, Pandalicious is a must-have for puzzle and logic fans.
Price: Free, $1.50
Tested on: HTC One X
Content Rating: Everyone
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Very relaxing puzzler with challenging gameplay!
- Nice graphics, great sound and music!
Cons
- Might benefit from different backgrounds and challenges for gameplay diversity.
- Small issue with control sensitivity.
Features:
Pandalicious is a fun and addictive puzzle game for your Android device. Starting with the initially placed hexagonal piece of trellis, you must extend the length of the trellis to allow your bamboo sprout to grow. With each piece you place, the shoot grows and you earn points. You can rotate the hexagons by sweeping up and down. If the piece doesn’t fit you can swipe to the side to try a different bit. Place the chosen piece by tapping on it. Simple to play but the lie of the trellis paths makes for intelligent and captivating gameplay.
One small issue I had with Pandalicious is the sensitivity of the controls. Often I found myself tapping on the piece to place it, only for it to rotate suddenly instead. This is immeasurably frustrating if you are trying to navigate your way out of a tight spot. No matter how careful I was this continued to occur and dampened my enjoyment of the game. I’m sure however, this is something easily rectified in an update tweak.
If you manage to overlap a few of the hexagons in one go, this is called ‘Pandalicious‘ and you earn extra points. The game is over when you hit a wall or return the sprout to Panda, who sits in the centre of the board throughout. The game can get quite exciting if you can work out a way of running the sprout back through several already placed pieces and win you plenty of points!
Pandalicious is very relaxing and chilled out to play- a genuine sense of zen comes with it. There’s no rush and you can carefully place the pieces strategically in your own time. Perhaps there might be room in the future for different scenarios to be implemented, or different backgrounds to add diversity, but for now it’s still a fun game that’s astonishingly addictive and challenging.
Watch on Mobile
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Pandalicious – In-play 1
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Pandalicious – In-play 2
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Pandalicious – In-play 3
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Pandalicious – Final score 1
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Pandalicious – Final score 2
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Pandalicious – Main menu
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Pandalicious – Instructions
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Pandalicious – High scores
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Pandalicious – Splash page
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Pandalicious – Settings
Fun Factor:
I found Pandalicious loads of fun. Creating a long sprout feels very rewarding and when the game ends you feel determined to improve your score. While it is fun it is also quite relaxing- well, it would be if the sensitivity issue were resolved- thus I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Addictive:
Yes, very. I found myself getting dragged into the game over and over again. Writing this review has taken me far longer than it should as I keep picking the game up and playing it “just to make sure”. From my perspective that’s always a good thing.
Graphics:
The graphics are quite simple but very well animated and highly detailed. I really would have liked to see some different backgrounds to give the game a bit of variety- perhaps levels you unlock with higher scores, but as it stands it’s a bright, colourful and fun environment.
Accelerometer, Vibration & Sound:
The sound is chilled out and very cool. Zen-like forest sounds and the blissed-out patter of drum beats. There are small sound effects if your sprout overlaps more than one hexagon and there’s a veritable chorus when you overlap many, winning you the Pandalicious banner across the screen. Works perfectly with the game.