Though covered in our Three For Free Friday feature, Orba won’t be free for long. We think it deserves a proper writeup as a great SameGame variant that is bursting with style.

It is truly surprising how much the presentation adds to the experience. You get the feeling that a lot of effort was put into the game to the point of which the developer was extremely proud of the finished product. And it shows; subtle details abound. Whenever a game is paused, the settings, help screen and high scores are only a tap away, whilst the current game is faded out in the background, providing a stylish canvas for the menu screen. Options are tucked away in drawers and the game doesn’t try and overload you with information. The pleasant click click of chains being cleared along with a scattering of other sound effects serve as the audio presentation for the game, working perfectly over the top of your own music.

If you like, you can turn on the show moves setting which makes spotting matches a pinch; or simply have it off to increase the difficulty of the game. And a simple shake works decently as an undo function—note that it will only let you go back one move.

Like in SameGame, you will be trying to clear big clusters of orbs for large points; they get larger as the levels increase, plus you obtain bonuses for clearing all the orbs of a certain colour or indeed the whole board! Once you run out of moves, your board will be refilled with more, and new colours arrive pretty quickly. Run out of matches on a full board and the game is over, whereupon you’re prompted to enter your high score.

Only one thing is missing—the lack of iPhone status bar. The inclusion of this would make the game much better for when you’re on the go—even by adding it in the pause menu would be great (and adding this to Lexic wouldn’t hurt). But there’s not much more to the game than that—it’s just that the presentation adds so much more to the experience. If you’re going to pick up a SameGame title, you’d do well to pick up Orba.

Media gallery

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

More by this developer

Aqueduct, A

Review by Ben Briggs, June 29, 2010

Lexic, B

Review by Ben Briggs, October 18, 2009

Why not try...

---

• 

  Smiles

• 

  Mayan Puzzle

• 

  Call of Atlantis

• 

  Dapple