Necrophobia (Puzzle)

Necrophobia by Tempa Labs is a fall-forward match-3 variant puzzle game. The game is comparable to Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes by Capybara. But unlike the latter, Necrophobia uses a move/switch tile instead of a last-in-first-out pickup-and-drop game mechanic as a primary method of moving units around.

(Did you understand all the jargon? I made some up myself.)

Necrophobia is about a Zombie Necromancer, who has necrophobia, who has just risen from the dead, who is on a quest to find out why he has risen from the dead. The story is funny and has an interesting plot. But that is not the only charm. It has an interesting gameplay too. However, the game lacks depth so it would not take too long for a player to complete the game. (More on the shortcoming later.)

If you highlight the red guys on the right, you'd see that they are actually two different types.

As it can be seen in the screenshot above, the game is definitely different from the all-too-famous match-3 puzzle gameplay. First, the whole play grid is not filled with tiles (or units). The number of units available to the player depends on the 'Unit Reserve' stat, which can be upgraded.

In each turn, the player (on the left side) may spend moves (based on the Move stat, also available to upgrade) to switch the position of two tiles. The difference here is that a tile can be moved into an empty space, where it will fall forward towards the opposition's side. The idea is to match three or more tiles to put units into a Charge mode. After a number of turns have passed, indicated by the unit's Charge Turn, the unit(s) will rush forward to attack the opposition on the other side.

Each unit has a Power rating, which is used to both inflict and resist damage. When attacking, the attacker's Power is compared to the defender's. If the attacker has more, it will overrun the defender and continue attacking. If the defender has more, it will remove the attacker and remain with whatever Power it has left. If the Power are equal, both units are lost. Simple.

While a unit is Charging, it will gain Power equal to its Charge Power each turn. Thus, shorter Charge Turn allows a unit to attack sooner, while more turns allows a unit to boost its power to greater heights, ominously.

A unit also may have a special ability that gives a unique affect when a certain condition is met. In the screenshot above, the Special launches a unit from the players reserve whenever the attacking unit with the Special beats up an opposing unit.

The player can also use a Move to remove a unit, which will be sent to the Reserve. Also, the player may expend a Move to Launch all units in Reserve onto his side of the battlefield. The Reserve is replenish by units removed from combat and those manually removed.

There is a minor problem of a few units looking very similar to each other (especially for color-blind people). Hovering the cursor over those units would identify them more clearly.

It has a story!

As stated earlier, the game has a story. Most parts of the story can be read again by replaying missions. This is crucial early in the game because of the inadequate tutorial system. The first battle will display tutorial messages to instruct the player on the gameplay. Unfortunately, the player may be (un)lucky and win the battle before all the messages are displayed. Hence the need for a replay.

Hopefully, between the tutorial and the gameplay description above, players would be able to understand the gameplay completely.

The Hellious Spitter is my favorite basic unit.

Winning and losing battles award the player with money, which can be used to upgrade the player's stats and units.

And here is the problem with the game's depth: There really are only a few units worth taking into battle. The lower tier units are lacking in stats and usefulness. Players will likely find more use with the special units that are based on the story characters (such as the main character's unit in the bottom of the screenshot).

Also, there are other interesting units with interesting Specials. However, those units are only available to the opposition.

There are only a limited number of fixed battles and after these and the game are completed, there is little motivation to continue beyond earning more money to upgrade to super-powerfulness. Which would be satisfying if there was a difficult challenge to overcome. Players would just have to be content with lording their power over the lesser opposition.

Necrophobia does not have much depth. But it does have the fall-forward match-3 game mechanic. It is likely that in the future, this game mechanic will be all-over-the-place common, much like Bejeweled and it's original match-3 game mechanic. While waiting for a better game, and for players too stingy to purchase Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes, Necrophobia is the game for you.