Gets a Red Card
Kick’n’Mix is a challenging soccer themed jigsaw puzzle game currently available in the App Store for just $2.99. At such a steep price of admission (by App Store standards), one would expect the game to come complete with polished menus, content and gameplay. Unfortunately though, what you get is an end-product that’s a bit rough around the edges, coming across as amateur-ish at best. Which is why I highly suggest that you take the lite version for a spin before parting with your hard-earned money.
From a technical perspective, the game runs well. It loads up almost instantly, the controls work about as well as to be expected, and I didn’t experience any bugs or crashes.
However, the overall product itself is somewhat bland and unimaginative. Don’t get me wrong the developers nailed the jigsaw puzzle aspect flawlessly, they just failed to take the time to expand on it in any compelling way. Which means for $2.99 what you get is nothing more then a glorified package of 64 virtual jigsaw puzzles that just so happen to have a soccer theme. Just in time for the World Cup.
I don’t mean to be harsh here, but this game completely lacks style (uses native iPhone menus for almost everything) and atmosphere (no sound effects at all). Both of which are essential elements for any game and if done right can greatly enhance even the most repetitive and menial tasks into a gameplay experience that is actually fun to play.
I could go on and detail out a whole laundry list of shortcomings, but I’m just going to sum them all up and say that I was truly disappointed in this game’s presentation.
Nevertheless, when you get right down too it, the jigsaw puzzle mechanics are actually very well done. Kick’ n’ Mix includes 32 puzzles each with 2 variant modes; 1) Training Mode: a single image broken up into 9 pieces. 2) Match Day: a tiled image (think like tiled desktop backgrounds) also broken up into 9 pieces. The latter of which easily doubles, if not triples the difficulty of solving the puzzle. As with any jigsaw puzzle the object is to simply unscramble a scrambled image by re-positioning pieces around the puzzle and/or rotating them around until the image is completely unscrambled.
On a personal note: I would really have liked to seen a bit more creativity packed into the experience, such as bonuses, power-ups, the works; because as is the experience of simply unscrambling an image doesn’t really impress me all that much.
iFanzine verdict: Kick’n’Mix is an amateurish soccer themed jigsaw puzzle game with a steep price tag. I would highly suggest hitting up the lite version first or just completely skipping this one altogether.
[xrr rating=2/5]