Today I’ve downloaded the game Super Sugar Crash from the App Store. It’s an arcade-style game for Merge Cube. It’s a paid app that has received a high rating on miniverse.io (5/5 as of the time of writing). It’s the only game alongside Tiltball and Cube Conquest that has the highest rating.
It’s a Different Merge Cube Game
Anyways, I looked at the screenshots on miniverse.io and those weren’t images in AR. So in fact, Super Sugar Crash is completely different than all of the other Merge Cube game that I’ve played.
The main difference is that instead of playing the game against a camera stream background, the game has a regular image like a standard game. The unique thing here is that the MERGE Cube acts as a controller that controls the main character in the game. This is definitely a completely different use of the MERGE Cube. You do lose the AR magic but you gain to experience a different experience.
Just so you know, I am reviewing Super Sugar Crash only using the “Phone Mode”, not the “VR Mode” that requires the Merge VR headset.
Gameplay
In Super Sugar Crash your Merge Cube becomes a cloud whose name is Clarence. You need to guide it to collect candies that fall from the sky. For each candy, you collect you gain points.
Tap the screen to summon your unicorn sugarfriend. The Sugarfriend let you bounce the blowfish. Blowfish are big red colored fish that you need to make sure they don’t touch the ground. When you see a Blowfish, just spawn your unicorn and hit the Blowfish toward the top of the screen so it can keep floating. Just be careful not to use your Sugarfriend for too long as you’ll start losing points.
The reason you want the Blowfish to stay up in the sky is that they make the candies worth more points, so the more blowfish, the more points you get. If a Blowfish touches Clarence (this is you), the fish bomb goes boom and you lose one life (called a Bomb in the game). Oce you run out of bombs charges, the game is over.
The game is really fun and I think it’s the perfect Merge Cube game for kids. The voices are so cute and the colorful and cheerful atmosphere hooked me from the very first moment.
The gameplay itself is really fun and I am speaking as an adult. I find the Phone Mode to work well for me, but after playing for a few minutes straight I start feeling the muscles of my arms. The reason for this is that the game requires continuous movement of the Merge Cube in mid-air and in different directions. This why I think that kids might find it uncomfortable playing the game for more than 2 minutes straight. I didn’t try the VR mode so I can provide you any feedback on whether it’s more comfortable than the Phone mode or not.
The gameplay is fun and challenging. It’s an endless game so it can be challenging even for adults. The Blowfish will become more often and as a group which makes requires fast reaction times. As good as I thought I was, I eventually failed. I try my best but I failed after two minutes.
The thing is that in order to gain points, you need to deactivate the unicorn because it is just pushing the candies up and not collecting them. The constant changing of the unicorn cause me to touch the Blowfish and lose points.
The is also a really cool Bonus feature. When you collect a certain amount of points, a bonus round will start. There are no Blowfish and those who are in the area can’t hurt you. In that part, many candies will fall out of the sky, and you need to quickly collect as many candies as possible. You can get lots of points in that phase so make sure you collect as many candies as possible.
After putting effort into trying to play the best I can and get a very high score, I found out that there isn’t any global leaderboard. I think maybe the developer wanted to remove the competitive part and opted not to include a global leaderboard.
Conclusion
This is not an AR game, but I’ve decided to include it because I am currently reviewing many Merge Cube games and I want people to see what this little baby can do. I thought it’s actually cool that this game is different, so you can see what other things the Merge Cube can do other than offering a cool way to play AR games.
My main problem with this game is that you don’t even get to enjoy a 3D animation when rotating the Merge Cube, the image stays the same, flat on the screen. It could have been so much more exciting if the Cloud rotated as I rotate the cube, what you usually get when playing Merge Cube games.
It’s a cool idea, I just feel that for the casual gamer and the target audience (mainly kids I think), it just might too troublesome considering that you don’t get to enjoy an AR experience, just a standard game with the Merge Cube as the controller. Having said that, the game itself is fun and I’m positive that kids will love it, just make sure that you have a Merge Cub and you are all set.
You can download SUPER Sugar Crash from the App Store here.