I’ve never liked Boulder Dash. Just a quick admission right there. However like Tower Defence I’ve never stopped wanting to play Boulder Dash style games, especially when we get tokens for them. So here’s PebbleDash, a fairly shameless take on the classic formula. The game offers 30 levels of gem collecting, rock dodging action for your 240 space bucks and has an art style that manages to be both charmingly hand-drawn and horrible looking at the same time.
There are no fancy bells and whistles present here. The main menu consists of a level select and a play button. The simple, no-frills approach filters down to the gameplay. All you have to do on any level is collect a certain number of gems before finding the exit. The HUD is nothing but a running count of how many gems you need before the exit opens and the only graphical effect present is a blackness which prevents you from seeing too far ahead. In terms of presentation and gameplay this is simplicity itself.
Beware: Falling Rocks
As in every other Boulder Dash clone the main skill required in PebbleDash is the ability to plan ahead. Rocks are often arranged in formations specifically to punish players who rush in to grab gems and hope for the best. However this leads to my first major annoyance. With pretty much every single one of these formations there’s only one correct way to approach it in order to take every gem.
This wouldn’t be a problem if there was any leeway in the number of gems you had to take from every level. However even in the early levels the requirement is to take every single gem from the level. This leads to a lot of level restarting when you make one tiny misstep only to have a boulder block a gem or fall on your head.
More gems than a rapper’s neck
Not all levels are made up of rock formation puzzles however. In some levels the aim is instead to kill enemies using boulders as weapons. Each enemy drops a generous 9 gems when destroyed making these levels much less prone to restarts as the gem totals can be reached without taking out every enemy.
The problem with these levels comes from the often unpredictable nature of the enemy movement. While some enemies travel in set paths regardless of you there are other enemies which will chase you around the level. These enemies led to the vast majority of my deaths after they came flying out of the darkness without me noticing. While leading these enemies into a perfectly planned trap is hugely satisfying, it’s rare that you’ll have a perfect trap ready. Most of my kills came from a panicked scramble to drop a rock down a shaft I’d just been chased up.
A few other things worth mentioning
- One of my pet peeves about this type of game has always been the seemingly random boulder movement. This game does nothing to change that with boulders that sometimes remain steady on ledges and other times come rolling off.
- There’s a stripped down version of the game (imaginatively titled PebbleDash Lite) containing the first 15 levels available for 80 points on Marketplace.
You should play this game if…
…you’re a Boulder Dash fan after a new challenge.
Final Score
A no-frills approach to a classic formula, but one that retains many of the format problems.
