Polarium

Nintendo exclusive

Polarium mixes way-cool gameplay with an electronica soundtrack for the trippiest experience yet on the DS. It's the first game that would look cool at a rave. Polarium is a simple, stylish puzzle game you play entirely with the Nintendo DS touch screen and a stylus. Draw lines to flip black and white tiles and make patterns and puzzles disappear.

Released: 2 December 2004
Platforms: Nintendo DS
Genres: Puzzle Strategy
Developers: Mitchell Corporation
Publishers: Nintendo
Modes: Multiplayer Single-player
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Themes: Action
Country: Japan
Age ratings: ACB G CERO A PEGI 3 USK 0 ESRB E
Languages: Chinese (Simplified), English, Japanese

About

Polarium is a 2004 puzzle video game developed by Mitchell Corporation and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS. It was a launch title in Japan, Europe and China. In the game, players use a stylus to draw lines on the DS's touch screen, flipping black and white tiles to clear puzzles. A Game Boy Advance version, Polarium Advance, was released with additional puzzles.

Keywords

blocks
user generated content

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The player selects tiles by drawing lines over them with the stylus. Selected tiles will flip from black to white or vice versa. In the standard Tetris-like challenge mode, players must make room for falling tiles by clearing rows as they pile up on the bottom screen. Rows are cleared by flipping the tiles to make rows that are all black or all white.

Surrounding the main puzzle area are gray "neutral" tiles that have no effect on the puzzle but can be used to flip disconnected groups of tiles in a single pass. The scoring in Challenge and Versus mode are based on how the lines are cleared; for example, more points are given when more lines are cleared (lines), when numerous lines are cleared with just one stroke continuously (chains), when there are 2 separate lines cleared with uncleared lines between them (split), or when several lines are cleared in one stroke, but different lines have different polarities (borders).

Reception

Polarium received "average" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of one eight, one seven, and two eights for a total of 31 out of 40.