We have had Gemstorm on three computers now, and my wife has enjoyed every minute she has ever played of it. It is not so much my type of game, but even though she has beaten it before, multiple times, she still likes to do so. She'll go in phases of playing and not playing it, but always comes back to it. One thing that we especially appreciated about it is that the creator, when we registered it, sent us a nice personal note thanking us for playing and buying his game.
We have had Gemstorm on three computers now, and my wife has enjoyed every minute she has ever played of it. It is not so much my type of game, but even though she has beaten it before, multiple times, she still likes to do so. She'll go in phases of playing and not playing it, but always comes back to it. One thing that we especially appreciated about it is that the creator, when we registered it, sent us a nice personal note thanking us for playing and buying his game. We looked him up recently and saw that he was credited on some of the Sims games - he does good work. There are three skill levels on
Gemstorm, and my 5-year-old son has started to get hooked on the easy level. I suppose he'll be enthralled with it as my wife is - but maybe not for a while!
You can change the appearance of the gems that drop, and each level requires something a little different - always challenging - so you don't get bored too often. In terms of the skills required, it is very like Tetris, but not the same old boring thing each time and each level. I've seen it described as one of the most addicting games of the nineties, and I can agree. There are up to, let's see, six colors, I think? Red, Green Blue, Aqua, Yellow and Purple. And, of course, the rainbow gems (like a wild card - it can be any color), and the stone gems, which can't be matched, and so never disappear. When you build strings of a certain length, though, you get credits, or "nots," that will allow you to use certain power-up type tricks. If, for instance, you need to get three in a row as the threshold to make the gems vanish off the board, the "not threshold" might be four in a row. Then you'll have a not. You can use a single not at a time to make the bottom row of gems vanish, or use them in certain combinations. Two nots will make all the same colors gems on the board vanish, three will get rid of all the stone pieces, four will flip the entire board, five - um I forget. Six is a tornado that rearranges them all.
Clearing the first line is definitely the most useful - you can use it to give yourself room to make that last drop and clear the board. It's funny - when you beat the game, you get a big kiss graphic! We totally recommend Gemstorm!
