"Talismania is a puzzle game jointly developed by RocketJump Games and PopCap Games, and published by GameHouse. It was released on August 3rd, 2006. In the game, you play King Midas, who has accidentally transformed his daugher, Marygold, into a golden statue with the magical Midas Touch. The Greek god Zeus will agree to reverse her transformation if Midas uses magical talismans to create money to spend on others instead of himself, to atone for his sins of greed. To help him with this task, Zeus has presented Midas with a team of builders, so that he can rebuild various buildings and landmarks across the kingdom."
Talismania is the newest arrival from PopCap Games. This puzzle game is slightly more addictive than any other game PopCap has in its library to date. I would gather that it is more addictive and fun than Tetris was fifteen years ago. Talismania is like a good Merlot, simple in flavor but presents a strong satisfaction.
After receiving the press release from PopCap Games that announced this new arrival, I went out and downloaded the demo to give it a try. The game contained some natural draw to me that I could not describe. It might be the nature of puzzle games and their ability to quickly hook you like a fish to a worm. A few days later, I had finished the main story mode of the game and sat back with a satisfied look on my face, “I beat it.”
The Modes
There are two modes to Talismania: Story Mode and Hero Mode. It is clear from the start that Hero Mode is locked, so you must complete some of the Story Mode before unlocking it. The two modes share most of the same style except Hero Mode is a timed puzzle whereas Story Mode is not. You must finish the puzzle before time runs out – the more time you have the more points you earn. This is unlike Story Mode, where you have all the time in the world to finish a puzzle and have the opportunity to perfect your techniques.
The GamePlay
The game play is simple yet intriguing enough to keep you addicted. Each level pits you in a hexagonal grid maze of tiles that you can spin clockwise by right-clicking or counter-clockwise by left-clicking. Every tile has two or more tunnel-like pathways to guide a beam of light from one talisman to another. You are given one or more pairs of talismans which you must connect through this beam of light.
Once you spin the tiles so the beams of light link you will receive a number of coins for each tile between the two talismans.
The coins you collect will be made of bronze, silver, or gold. The goal is to collect as much money as possible throughout the level. Once you link two talismans all the tiles that were part of the link are converted into coins and new ones drop down (in a fashion similar to Hexic).
The coins you collect help Midas build monuments, temples and other architecture to complete Zeus’s task. As you collect coins, your Talisman Meter will rise. This meter is right at the top of the level in the letters of TALISMAN. They move from bronze to silver and finally to gold as you build paths. Watch out, however, because the meter drains while you’re building paths, so it is in your best interest to build them fast. When you hit silver or gold, the next talisman set will be made of that respective material. The gold talismans (shaped like lions) will convert the tiles into gold coins, the silver (unicorns) into silver coins, and bronze (owls) into the most basic coin.
A Talisman master will work hard to complete the tasks quickly in order to keep gold talismans on the board and score the highest points by bringing in the most gold coins. Once you’ve filled your gold scale to its maximum goal (written under the scale) you will defeat the level.
There are five levels in each chapter of the story and a total of eight chapters.
As you can see by my completed map I have all the chapters finalized, but not all of the structures are built with gold! That is because I am not yet talented enough to receive large amounts of gold talismans for each chapter. Each time you build a part of the required architecture, it uses your money to buy the most expensive material. If you notice in the “Colossus” chapter I managed to make a silver statue except for the right arm – that sucker is gold! Unfortunately, I was unable to build a full gold statue due to lack of skill.
You cannot really lose in Story Mode, but you may not complete the story with all gold monuments. You are not able to go back and redo the chapters without starting a fresh game, so do it perfectly the first time or deal with the consequences – this is part of the challenge and replayability factor. Didn’t do it perfect? Start over!
The Challenge
Talismania’s Story Mode starts out fairly tame. Initially you believe it’s a “simple puzzle game” until you see your first monster. The game contains a host of mythological monster tiles that will appear as the levels increase in difficulty. Any number of monster tiles can be on a puzzle and the more you find the harder the game becomes. You may find yourself up against a Medusa tile where she will randomly turn your tiles into stone; useless for gathering coins, if you do not cross her path with the talisman beam (after all, she’s a tile like all others).
You cannot rotate monster tiles and this adds an increased level of difficulty. They are static tiles, some which will move on their own after you complete a talisman link and do not include them. Each time you complete a link and you do not include a monster it will perform its own specific action. For example, a Minotaur tile rips through your tiles, making them useless for coins, by charging in a straight line in a random direction. The Acid Slime spits acid on your coin scale and eats away a few coins. A red Acid Slime will chew away bonus stars, a Siren drains your Talisman Meter and a Kraken chews on a percentage of coins you just earned by completing the link (and not including him).
To make matters worse, an Epic Monster is like all other monsters but requires two turns to kill. That means you’re going to take a penalty in most situations unless you are fast and can destroy them with another pair of talismans on the board (or jumping into Talismania Mode - see below).
The last ramp of difficulty arrives when you see your first animated tile. This little tile spins around in a circle and you can select a position for it by right or left clicking but, after a few seconds, it will begin moving again. If you plan to use them in your path you must do it quickly or continue to go back and join them when they re-animate. However, you gain more points for using these tricky tiles.
Talismania Mode
A puzzle game isn’t complete without many bonus opportunities. As you’re completing levels and making really skillful moves, you gain one or more stars. These stars can be used to go into Talismania Mode for a number of seconds (depending on the total stars you have accrued). Once in this mode you quickly click the tiles on the hexagonal maze and they will turn instantly into coins as if you linked two talismans. If you can click all the tiles, you will gain a large quantity of coins (perhaps enough to complete the level without further work).
In later levels, I found this to be extremely important for destroying a number of annoying monster tiles. When I was in a situation where I had no easy paths to destroy all the monsters and I had five monster tiles on my screen in a single turn, the fastest way to destroy them was to enter Talismania Mode and target them for destruction (and coins). However, since this mode requires you to build up more stars by doing fantastic maneuvers it should only be used in times of desperation or if you know you will be able to complete the level quickly after using it.
Bonus Chest
The bonus chest, usually sitting beside Midas in the far-right corner, is initially locked. To open the chest you must complete the entire level in a specific number of turns determined by the number on the chest. This is your incentive to build long pathways in short time. A turn is initiated when you link two talismans together.
If you receive the bonus chest, you will be handed a large stack of additional coins at the end of the level. These coins are valuable for those trying to build completely gold monuments.
Special Tiles
Talismania does not come with all curses and monsters. Some tiles that show up are there to help you. The Bonus Tile gives you a five-coin bonus if you complete a link with this tile in your path. The Power Tile fires a lightening bolt (from Zeus) down in a straight line and all tiles in its path become coins (including monster tiles). There is a Freeze Tile which will freeze the turn counter on the Bonus Chest so that you have a few free turns to work with.
There are two other tiles that must be mentioned: the Combo Tile, and Pandora Tile. The Combo Tile is a tile that has four branches and you must link four beams into the tile. The beams must all be the same talisman type: bronze, silver, or gold. If you can link all four beams into one of these tiles, you get a five-star bonus and all the talismans and paths utilized are turned into coins. The downfall is that it takes some time to complete and your Talisman Meter will probably suffer for your patience.
The Pandora Tile can be good or bad (isn’t that always the way with her?) It has eight branch pathways running through it and is easy to incorporate into a path, sometimes unavoidable. Once you turn it into a coin, it is replaced by a random bonus tile or monster tile. Good luck.
The Story
Ok, hold your breath for a minute… you may play this game and learn a bit about history. I apologize now to those gamers that want mindless game entertainment. When you complete certain structures or statues, you are given facts about mythological history. These are “fun facts” that you probably should have taken notes on in sixth grade.
The game does indeed have a story but I must admit… I liked the puzzles too much to pay close attention to it. I do know that each chapter had a cartoon-like scroll that had words and pictures. I just clicked “OK” and moved to the next chapter. I apologize up front to the story designer and promise to read it if the story comes out in hardcover.
The Music Score
The music, by Somatone Productions, was perfect for this game. These folks also did the music for Metal of Honor on the PlayStation 2 along with a few Disney games and Indie games. The audio has almost an Egyptian rhythm mixed with a new aged techno which is best summed up by one word: awesome.
The music is clear and professional. This is the type of audio rhythm that one could listen to in their car on the commute to work. The sound is fluid, relaxing and contains an addictive beat. Those with good bass boxes and sound systems will appreciate the musical score.
The Eye Candy
The graphics remind me of Zuma on the Xbox 360 with a bit more of a cartoon aspect. The story and characters are definitely set in a Super Deformed anime style world. The graphics are as clear and professional as the sound quality but are not mind-boggling next-generation graphics that you’d see in Call of Duty 2 or Madden 07. They are built perfectly for the game atmosphere and make you feel like you got your $19.95 worth.
High Score
The score is everything. You want to have the best score in your neighborhood and a puzzle game is about high scoring. The score is determined by many in-game factors such as the amount of money you gain, how fast you gain your coin, how many gold coins you have, the amount of bonus chests (which is coin), a few mid-level mini-games for more points, etc.
To list out all the ways that you can increase the score would be a bit more in-depth than required for this review. Just know that, like most puzzle games, it’s all about gaining the best score and practicing to utilize all situations for the highest scoring actions.
How could it be better?
I am a big fan of manuals and installable documentation. This game comes with a “View Readme,” which covers credits, legal information, and other such text. It also comes with a link to PopCap Games’ website but I was unable to find any real documentation for the game. The best documentation on the web is the Talismania wikipedia entry.
The game contains tips as you’re playing to help you learn, but I have a bad habit of clicking “ok” and moving on. I like to read documentation before or after I play a bit – not during the game. Therefore, it would be nice to have a concrete set of rules for the game outside of the in-game tips.
The high scores are not posted on the Internet. I believe the game would contain a larger amount of challenge had the scores been competitive across the world.
Final Wrapup
Talismania is an enjoyable game for a twenty-dollar bill. I believe you will gain much more enjoyment from this game than using your USD $19.95 to see a movie with a bag of Sour Patch Kids and a Root Beer. The game mechanics will be learned in a matter of minutes but the game can take weeks to master. There are so many small details that increase your points, coins and completion speed that you just won’t learn it overnight.
Having defeated Story Mode I thought I would be done and ready to put the game down. This is not a true statement at all. Going back and attempting to build more gold structures is clawing at me and I’ve just barely touched Hero mode. I suggest you download the demo from PopCap Games and see for yourself. The value of $19.95 is worthwhile. I would love to see this game show up on Xbox Live Marketplace in the future.
Rating: BUY
You want to try before you buy? Download It Here
I also urge you to visit popcap.com if your a casual gamer or looking for some lunch time fun in your cube at work.
If you want a full high quality review along with the PopCap games interview, checkout 2o2p Magazine Issue #6
