Here's a novelty – it's a twist on a game everyone is a) familiar with and b) probably bored with to the ends of the Earth. Minesweeper might have been great to teach people how to use a mouse in Windows 3.1 (or whatever) but it's so familiar that it takes a twist and a good developer to make it feel fresh again.
So hats off to Frienzplay who have managed to do just that.
And the twist is a complete one-eighty to the traditional Minesweeper game. Here the mines have been replaced with jewels, and your job is to find them as quickly as possible. Yes you still use the same logic because you know how many jewels are around an uncovered square, but now you've to not avoid them, but identify the locations as quickly as possible. Because if you don't nail the reward quickly enough, you'll run out the thirty second per move clock and hand the advantage back to your opponent.
Yes, this is mano-a-mano combat, either with a suitably Bluetoothed-up opponent in the real world, or a virtual challenge from an AI player in your handset. Throw in variable grid sizes with different numbers of jewels to find, the pressure of the always ticking clock to balance the long logical chains of thought you are working on, and you have a pretty distinctive game that, cliché aside, everyone will know how to play.
Dino Detective also gets lots of kudos for looking wonderful on the screen. There's a certain cartoon-ish feel with primary colours, slightly askew menu buttons and big star bursts on the screens replicating the soft key functionality. It just looks like someone has spent time on the game, polishing all the areas where it is just functions until a beautiful look appears.
Does it change how the game is played? Nope. Does it make you want to play the game more than, say, a monochrome/wireframe version of the game? Of course it does. While presentation won't save a bad game, it does improve a good game. And it certainly improves Dino Detective.
This is a smart idea and it's implemented well. That immediately puts it ahead of many other titles on the Ovi Store, and it deserves to do well. While not a flagship game in any sense of the word, this is something that's going to be staying on my phone for some time to come.
One last point... I've still no idea where the Dinosaurs come into the game, beyond some bones on the opening screen and a splash screen at the end. No matter!
-- Ewan Spence, August 2010