When you think of puzzle games, chances are you envision a "falling block" style game in the vein of Tetris. Given the countless variants on the Russian masterpiece's formula, however, it's understandable why you would narrow the genre down to that particular gameplay style. Polarium doesn't fit into that mold. Instead of testing your reflexes and ability to sort different colored/shaped objects, it tests your ability to analyze a puzzle and determine its solution.

Polarium is played entirely on the DS's touch screen, and it takes full advantage of the hardware. You are presented with a grid of black and white tiles on the screen. By tracing the stylus over the tiles, they flip and turn the other color. When an entire row is the same color, it disappears. There are two game modes that use this mechanic in different ways.

Trace this note in one stroke to win. Later puzzles are much more tough.

It's Black, It's White

Challenge mode blends the tile flipping with ye olde falling block gameplay, forcing you to draw against the clock. Clumps of tiles fall from the DS's top screen, and when they land on the bottom screen, you need to work as quickly as you can to turn them all the same color to get rid of them. Every couple seconds a new batch falls, so you have to focus on clearing as many tiles with one line since it's much faster to wipe out several blocks with one stroke than multiple tiles at a time. If you don't constantly clear the tile, they eventually back up onto the top screen. Once the top screen fills up, it's game over.