Magic Bounce, by Public
Pocket Games, $11.99
Reviewed July 2002
Not all games set in medieval times have
dark dungeons and walking skeletons. Magic Bounce combined
the medieval theme with bright pastel colors to create the
cartoonish and adorable world of Castlezar. Developed by
Public Pocket Games, Magic Bounce has got to be the only
game where your biggest and only enemies are magic bouncing
balls.
The sharp and clear images will surely
grab your attention to this Disney like game, but there is
plenty of game play to match this eye candy. The game’s
objectives are basically to shoot the magic balls until they
are all gone, but the game elements include not only first
person shooter but also some LodeRunner like running puzzles.
There are total 50 levels, which are not impossible to beat
for calm and patient gamers, since the game has a pretty
steady pace with occasional thumb-numbing shooting. You have
10 lives to start the game and can pick up more in the game.
There’s also a time limit for each level. Running out
of time will cost you a life, when you run out of life, the
game ends.
There are 4 types of magic balls. The large
Blue Balls can be broken into medium size blue balls, then
into smaller size balls, which can then be destroyed. The
Green Balls, the Red Balls and the Core Balls will take more
hits to break. These magic balls are magical not only because
they can kill you on contact, but also because they hold
many secret items. When you break the magic balls, bonus
items will fall out, though not all bonus items are good.
There are 15 type of bonus items, half of them will give
you extra lives, better weapons, shields, extra time and
more speed while the other half will poison you, or slow
you down and etcetera. So read the help file before starting
your voyage into Castlezar! My personal favorite bonus is
the Arbalest, it boosts up your shooting speed and it shoots
arrows instead of beams.
You can save the game when you’ve
finished a level, and you will need to after level 30  .
The sound effects in Magic Bounce are very cute and the music
tracks are more Renaissance than Medieval. The program takes
up 2.5 MB memory and supports both ARM and MIPS.
Playing Hints and Tips:
In the beginning of each level,
you will have a shield on for a few seconds. Use this time
to get to a safe place if the spot where you start out
at is unsafe. Study the structure at the beginning of a
level (especially the higher levels), don’t just
shoot right away because sometimes you can trap yourself
by shooting the wrong bricks.
After level 30, make sure you save
the game every time you finished a level.
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