I’m always a sucker for puzzle games at PAX Australia, so when I saw Mallow Drops (by Sydney-based development studio Gritfish) at this year’s PAX Rising section – I knew I had to go and try it out.
I’m glad I did. And it’s not because they had marshmallows at their stall.
Mallow Drops is a combination of a platformer and a sliding block puzzle game, and the gameplay is very easy to get your head around. You control one of the birds – Marsh or Mallow – and your goal is to collect the eggs on the screen. You can only move in a straight line, but you can twist and turn the world to move obstacles and find a clear path to collect the eggs. There are also monster enemies, which you will need to get around them by – of course – twisting the world.
Only when you collect all the eggs, the exit will activate and allow you to progress to the next level.
While the development team have made this game for desktop and mobile devices, the gameplay seems more intuitive for mobile. On the mobile apps, you can swipe anywhere on the screen to move, and rotate the device to control the gravity in the game. On a keyboard, it’s just pressing arrow keys and W/A/S/D to move around and control gravity respectively.
While Mallow Drops is currently demonstrating only five levels of the game (and there’s a competition on who can complete the puzzles the fastest), the full version of the game does have over 100 levels – and you can make your own levels. The creator, John Kane, also says there are a couple of “meta levels” in the game as well.
The game is currently available for Windows, Mac, and Linux on a wide variety of distribution stores, including Steam. The mobile version will be available later this year on iOS and Android – so you won’t have to wait as long.