Color Zen

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

First things first, it bears to mention that Color Zen is free to play, but I wouldn’t quite call it “Free to Play”, since that implies some nasty things that aren’t true in this case. You can play the first 120 levels of Color Zen for free, with three additional packs of 100+ levels apiece for a buck each. There’s also a “pay to skip” microtransaction, but I feel like in this case, that’s easily ignored, since you’d just be skipping one puzzle to get to another puzzle.

In other words, this is the best kind of “Free to Play” game in that you can actually play the game for free without being hounded to buy things. So… there’s really no reason not to download it and give it a try.

However, this is a review, so I’m reviewing it.

Color Zen is a puzzle game with a simple premise: multiple geometric shapes of different colors are on a field. When you touch two of them together, the background changes to that color, absorbing all other objects of the same color. Your goal is to touch these objects to each other in an order that allows you to finish with a solid field of one specific color, the color of the border.

It’s a simple concept, but it can make for some tricky puzzles, especially when the game starts to incorporate shapes within other shapes, white shapes that act like wild cards, and other tricky things.

While the game has a hefty amount of levels, many of those levels will go by quickly. It’s only when you get stuck that you’ll find you need to slow down and think about things. For the most part though, the game moves forward at a steady pace and is pretty enjoyable.

The presentation here is simple and clean, with simple multicolored geometric shapes and a chill soundtrack, clearly aiming for the “zen” feel of the game’s title. It’s nothing impressive but it works well for what this game is going for.

My big complaint about this game is that it is so very clearly intended for touchscreens and the interface in docked mode is slapped together just to be functional, but it lacks the elegance of the rest of the game.

However, for those looking for a fun, simple puzzle game to add to their Switch collection at the cost of zero dollars, Color Zen is hard to pass up, and not just because it’s free, but because it’s a decent, chill game that doesn’t hound you to plunk down cash.

tl;dr – Color Zen is a Free-To-Play puzzle game that’s the best kind of Free-To-Play. It’s a simple, straightforward puzzle game with a clean design and you get a lot of content without being hounded by microtransactions. It’s just a pity it doesn’t play as well in docked mode as it does in portable mode.

Grade: B

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