SPB fans will already recognise the core gameplay of Quads – this was one of the mini-games in SPB Brain Evolution (reviewed here), and of all the games on offer that SPB could have spun out to be their own show, this is the Frasier to Brain Evolution's Cheers.
At the time, I said: “To be honest, very few of these games could stand alone in the application market. I think Quadronica might have a chance, but only a slim one...” How wrong I was. Because Quads might have a shortened name, but the gameplay is extended, the playing field is full screen, the graphics are more solid, there are more adrenaline arcade elements on display – this is how you take a concept of a game and make it exciting.
So here's the concept – much like any other puzzle game, you have a playing grid of coloured pieces (four colours to start with in Quads), and you have to do something to make some of them vanish. In Quads, you have to find the corners of a square that all match in colour. When you manage this and highlight the square, the pieces that make up the corners, the edges and the insides all disappear, you get a score, and gravity fills up the rest of the playing field.
There is one major change between Quadronica and Quads and that is for the better – the controls. The latest is now fully compatible with the touch screen on S60 5th Edition devices (and it's only out for 5th Editon). Previously, moving your cursor around the screen to highlight the shape you want to zap naturally took some time; now it's a quick tap on the two squares that make up the opposite corners of the target shape and you're exploding away. Fast and simple, and doesn't require your brain to switch gears to move a little box around the screen.
SPB have also thrown into the mix some arcade “bonus bricks” that you can activate that change the colour of some bricks, act as dynamite, or even give you a helpful guide to where the largest shape is on the playing field. These are pretty standard extras in an arcade brick clearing game, but their inclusion stops the constant treadmill that you would otherwise have in Quads.
The other thing that's lacking in Quads is the ability to implement any sort of strategy. Look at the grandfather of block games, Tetris, and there are countless ways you can try to stack the bricks, and everyone has their own way of doing this that's “the best way”. This helps Tetris continue to be a classic game. Quads is a lot more random, with 15-20 random bricks added to the grid in every turn, and the player having perhaps only three or four moves available to them on the playing field. You can do some planning ahead, but it is a bit more chaotic in nature, and not as appealing. Still, this is a problem most of the current wave of block-destroying games have, so I'm not going to hold Quads at fault too much for this.
By adding in two different game modes, SPB have provided two slightly different ways of playing the game and keeping it fresh on your machine. They're not particularly different – one is a time-limited version of the game, the second is an “endless” challenge – but it shows that SPB have sat down and thought about squeezing as much value out of this game for the users as possible.
Quads is more than the sum of its parts – it's easy to understand, there is a certain amount of depth and challenge that works well for a mobile game you play for ten minutes or so at a time, it looks wonderful and generally lets you play the game without any interference or problems. They've even gone down the route of having a fully functional free version (that exits after a few minutes) so anyone can test the game before buying it. That's more than enough time to get hooked. Recommended, unless you have a deadline coming up!
-- Ewan Spence, April 2010.