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Sunshine Dice Palace

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Review written by Corn Bread

Puzzle games is one of the most popular genres for handhelds, but game makers seem to be running out of ideas as most puzzle games are simply rehashes and imitations of popular titles that have gone before. Here, however, is a semi-original game as it incorporates two separate game concepts into one game, Sunshine Dice Palace.

Sunshine Dice Palace is a sort of a hybrid puzzle game, a cross between the dice game Yachtzee and the famous falling brick game, Tetris. Six sided dice will fall one by one filling up the screen, which in order to remove from the screen, you must arrange horizontally or vertically following the combinations in Yachtzee games (Straight, Full House, 4 of a kind, etc.). Once you have made use of a combination, it becomes unavailable until the next level. The level is finished once you have created all of the possible Yachtzee combinations and any left over dice will be carried over to the next level.

The game certainly looks extremely good. From the well-animated intro screen to the backdrops and falling dice, Sunshine Dice Palace simply screams of eye candy. I was very impressed to see high quality graphics used in a puzzle game. The dice drop smoothly and I really like the disappearing effect the dice make when you form a hand.

Too bad, though, there is only one backdrop available throughout the game. It would have been nice if the backdrop would randomly change every few minutes, or perhaps once you had conquered a level. As beautiful as it is, it gets a little boring to look at after a few hours of playing it.

There is ambient music that plays in the background, which is really appropriate for a game like this. I liked the music, which was very relaxing and not irritating to listen to. In case it doesn't agree with you, however, there is an in-game control to turn the music off. There are no other added special sound effects in the game; the dice fall and disappear silently. A high score chart is also available in the game, plus you can also send your high scores to the Sunshine Dice Palace website and have them posted there.

The controls are handled by the device's joypad - there is no option to customize the controls or even use the stylus to control the dice. This, of course, is really a non-issue, as the game is really quite simple and doesn’t need the ability to customize the controls. For those of you who are not familiar with the game Yachtzee, fear not, there is a very well written set of rules and instructions included in the game. Combine that with the simple controls and you’ll be able to play this game in no time.

As much as I love the way this game looks, the combination of Yachtzee and Tetris in this game is simply not enough to have me play this for hours. Sunshine Dice Palace has only one game mode and, as you progress further into the game, the only difference is that the dice fall faster. There’s no insane combos to set up or power-ups that you can look forward to in this game; you simply keep doing the same thing over and over again. The game is just too simple, and not challenging enough to entertain.

There are no options available in the game other than the music on/off setting; there isn’t even a difficulty level selector. The game only costs $9.99, but for $9.99, I expected a little bit more. As it stands right now, I feel that Sunshine Dice Palace would have been a good game if only the developer had put more thought into adding some more options, game variations and surprises into the game. In its present incarnation, I find it pretty boring.

Sunshine Dice Palace is available for all major Pocket PC's and can be installed in either the main RAM or onto a storage card. The game requires 540 KB of storage space.

Pros:

  • Gorgeous graphics.

  • Good background music.

  • Good documentation.

Cons:

  • Boring and repetitive.

  • No sound effects.

  • No options or other game variants available.

  • Not challenging enough.

 

Overall Score: 5/10

Many thanks to Unknown for providing us with our review copy.

You may wish to search for more reviews of games from Unknown. Alternatively, you can view all the reviews written by Corn Bread.