Mosaique

Mosaique is a mobile puzzle game from developer Winning Blimp. It stands as the developer's debut offering and is available on the Android and iOS platforms. While the very core mechanic is to match colors and eliminate blocks, the structure and execution of the game is vastly different from popular color-matching puzzlers.

Execution

In Mosaique, the player attempts to rid the screen of all colored blocks that lie in the center of a square-shaped "arena". The player controls a shooter, which s/he rotates around the perimeter of the arena with on-screen clockwise/counter-clockwise buttons. The shooter is a colored block, just like those which populate the arena. When the player fires, the shooter flies out in a straight line towards the opposite end of the arena. If the shooter comes in contact with any blocks, it:

• eliminates blocks of the same color and continues flying
• swaps places with blocks of a different color (excluding black)
• is reflected back to its starting point by black blocks
• changes color to match the non-black block closest to it if it has removed the last block of its current color

Given these basic rules, the player can re-arrange the color lineup of the blocks in the arena in order to set up long strings of blocks that the player can clear in a single shot, gathering extra points. Each extra block cleared in a single shot acts as a multiplier, so the motivation is there to attempt to set up long strings of blocks whenever possible.

(An illustration of the rules per the screenshot: The shooter will fire off to the right, eliminate the five orange blocks, then swap places with the green block before returning to its starting point outside the arena... at which point it will be green.)

Shot Meter and Losing State

There's an additional point of motivation to clearing long strings. Every time the player fires, a meter at the bottom of the screen depletes. Should the meter empty out, the game is over. When the player has cleared two or more blocks in a single shot, the meter will be replenished by an amount dependent on the number of blocks cleared. Especially in "Expert" mode, where each shot depletes the meter much more than in "Normal" mode, clearing long strings--while minimizing shots that only serve to swap colors--is essential.

If the shot meter fills, the shooter is then able to clear blocks of any color on the following shot. This includes the black reflective blocks. Therefore, it's possible to clear an entire row of blocks--regardless of color--and re-fill the shot meter completely, giving you another opportunity to repeat the feat.

The Vacuum

Points and meter are visually represented on the playing field as little bits that fly out of the eliminated blocks, which are then absorbed by your shooter. However, in later levels, the game will put a "vacuum" block in the center of the arena. The vacuum will suck in a portion of the bits, thus reducing the amount of points you score as well as the meter you replenish every time you make a successful match. As the vacuum can be eliminated by any color, it's crucial to find a way to get rid of it as soon as possible--the most efficient method is to eliminate it as part of a chain.

Structure

Every game session is comprised of seven separate levels, each one progressively more complex than the last both in terms of quantity of blocks as well as the organization of colors and reflective black blocks. Once you have completed the seven levels, you are given a score tally and are "done" for the day, although you are free to re-play the game as many times as you want. If you play Mosaique every day of the week, you will be granted bonus points.