Even though it's not due out until April, we recently got some brief hands-on time with Polarium at GDC. The game takes the tile flipping aspect of the classic game Othello and turns it into a puzzle game that looks like it's going to cause plenty of the "just one more go" syndrome. On the screen are several tiles -- some black, some white. The goal is to clear the tiles from the screen in one movement of the stylus across the touch screen.
You see, when you draw over a tile, it changes color. You must trace over like-colored tiles in one motion so that when you stop, they all change to the same color, causing them to disappear. To make things slightly easier, there are gray areas bordering the playfield that don't flip when you trace over them.
It may look like a cell phone game, but it's pretty cool.
This basic gameplay is split up between a few different play modes. Puzzle Mode is the basic one, where you're presented with a screen full of tiles to clear. The Challenge Mode, is a bit more, well, challenging. As you clear tiles off the touch screen, more titles fall from the DS's top screen. It's a race against time and falling tiles as you continue drawing and clearing until both screens fill up with tiles.
Sadly, we weren't able to play the game's Versus mode, but we were informed that during multiplayer, new tiles come in from the sides, and power-ups will help you gain an edge on your opponent. When you're tired of battling, you can challenge your friend to solve puzzles that you created in Edit Mode. Even if your friend doesn't have a copy of the game, they can download a demo version from your version in order to play your custom creations.
Don't be fooled by Polarium's simple (and admittedly kinda bland) looking screenshots. There's a pretty fun game here. We're looking forward to April when we can see how well the game stands up to repeated play.
