Coloris is Nintendo's answer to Bejewelled. It's a "match 3" game, where you
have to make lines of 3 identically-colored tiles, but in this case instead of
swapping tiles you're tweaking the color of individual tiles up or down.
Unfortunately, many of the colors in this game are VERY close together; if you
are color blind, you probably will not be able to play this game, and even if
you're not color blind you will probably have a hard time differentiating
between the colors on some of the levels.
Basics
======
Move your cursor with the control pad, change the color of the selected tile by
pressing the A button. Pause by pressing Start. That's all of the controls.
Before each level, you will be presented by that level's color range. For
example, let's say that the color range is red-purple-indigo-blue. The cursor
will randomly switch colors between red and blue; clicking on a tile when the
cursor is red will make the tile one step redder, and clicking on a tile when
the cursor is blue will make the tile one step bluer. Clicking a red tile with
a red cursor or a blue tile with a blue cursor will make the tile "buzz", which
just indicates that the tile is already all the way red/blue and can't be
changed any further.
Every time you create a horizontal or vertical line of three or more tiles of
the exact same color, they clear.
At the top of the screen is a gauge. The color of the gauge's frame tells you
what color the cursor is going to be next. The gauge itself grows as you clear
tiles, and once it fills the entire frame you complete the level.
The tiles are also animated, and their animations will gradually speed up.
Clearing tiles will reset the animation speed of all adjacent tiles. If a
tile's animation gets too fast, that tile will turn into a black "garbage"
tile.
IF THERE ARE ANY GARBAGE TILES ON THE BOARD AT ALL, THE GAUGE WILL NOT
INCREASE!
Garbage tiles can be gotten rid of by clearing tiles adjacent to them twice;
the first clear will turn the garbage tile gray, and the second clear will
clear it.
Advanced
========
The game begins with a range of 4 colors. After a few levels, the range grows
to 5 colors, and then to the 6 primary and secondary colors. At this point,
instead of just cycling up or down between two end colors, the cursor switches
between all three primary colors (red, blue, and yellow), and clicking on a
secondary color with its opposite color (clicking a green tile with a red
cursor, or an orange tile with a blue cursor, for instance) will instantly turn
that tile into a garbage tile. Subsequent levels introduce even more colors
between the primary colors, for a grand total of 12 different colors, and
clicking on ANY shade of a secondary color with that color's opposite will
create a garbage tile.
There are two different "special attacks" in the game, the "X" and the circle.
If you clear a tile with the X on it, it will clear all of the tiles in an X
pattern centered on it and extending to the edges of the board. If you clear a
tile with a circle on it, it will clear all of the tiles of its same color.
Note that you can adjust the colors of tiles with special attacks on them just
like you would any other tile. Also note that clearing a garbage tile with a
circle on it (created either by ignoring the tile until it turns into garbage,
or by intentionally clicking on it with its opposite color) will clear all of
the garbage tiles on the board.
Modes
=====
There are two root modes; Clear and Score. Score mode is endless, with the goal
of getting the highest score possible. Clear mode is broken up into two
sub-modes, "Basic" and "Advanced". When you first start playing, the Advanced
sub-mode will not be available.
Basic mode is designed to ease you into the game. After completing every other
basic level, you will receive a notification that another Advanced or Score
mode level has been unlocked. Basic mode begins with a 4-color range, and ends
with a 12-color cycle. There are a total of 15 levels in Basic mode.
Advanced mode does clever things with the tiles and with backgrounds. It's not
particularly harder than Basic mode, although in some cases the colors are
closer together. Like Basic mode, the first level has 4 colors and the last
level has 12. There are a total of 35 levels in Advanced mode. Finishing all of
the levels in Advanced mode gives you the ending of the game and the credits.
Score mode lets you choose how big a color range you want (from 4 to 12 colors,
depending on how many you've unlocked in Basic mode) and play endlessly.
