The team at Outplay has released its latest title, Mystery Match. It’s, surprisingly enough, a match three game, in which players must make chains of three or more jewels, to remove them from the playing area.
Unlike the 800lb Gorilla of sweet-toothed all consuming Candy Crush, Mystery Match has a far more fascinating theme. Set in post-Edwardian Englandshire, the game introduces the intrepid, aristocratic sleuths Emma Fairfax and Julian Beaumont, as they unravel a plot both rum and uncanny, fashioned by the ingenius inventor Alexander Knight, the creator of a series of cryptic puzzle boxes.
Players must perform perplexing puzzle challenges, set in exquisite locales from 1930’s London and enchanting Venice to the Pyramids of Cairo. The game sets challenges such as clearing specific areas of the board, removing specific tokens from the board and mixing the perfect gin sling. Players have a set number of moves to achieve their goals and failure to do so will be met with ignominy and disapprobation from one’s peers and colleagues. Still, stiff upper lip old thing, what?
Along the way, the storyline introduces all manner of additional characters from seductive femmes fatale to disapproving parents, who can help – or hinder – the player’s progress. There are also power-ups which can be purchased allowing players to remove lines, explode jewels and otherwise turn the tables in their favour.
Mystery Match offers an intriguing and story-driven twist to the now familiar match three mechanic. If you disapprove of the type II diabetes-inducing Candy Crush Saga, then give Outplay’s latest a whirl. You may be the bold investigator who cracks the mystery wide open and reveals that the fiendish plot was actually Lord Anthony Fforbes-Carruthers, the noted explorer who, after many years in the sub continent, fearlessly exploring and bagging anything which crawls, walks, growls, trumpets, hoots, hisses or can be turned into rather vulgar home furnishings, has gone quite beyond the pale and turned as they say, to the dark side. Shocking behaviour. Shocking. Of course, they do say that his time among the heathens quite corrupted him. Not an excuse, obviously. But it does make one wonder if the chap is all right. You know, in the old noggin. Not our place to speculate of course, but still. One has to wonder at it.
In the meantime, one can spend one’s leisure time, solving mysteries and all that rot. Quite fashionable among the younger set – and the landed gentry we’ve heard tell. Whichever you feel is your mileau, Mystery Match is OUT NOW for those new-fangled iOS devices. Apple and whatnot, what?
Tally ho!
Mystery Match (iOS) – FREE (offers in-app purchases)
