Furzies: Mergedoku Review

Tetris-Doku, Is That You?

Fans of Tetris and Sudoku gather because I have found the furry lovechild of them both. Furzies: Mergedoku is a line block puzzle game where you’ll place blocks strategically to ensure the board stays as empty as possible. Of course, your Furzie friends will be there to help you out. It has the bearings of good old Tetris on a Sudoku board with your explosive Candy Crush items to help you clear the board. Now, I know what you’re thinking, and yes, this is that Frankenstein of a game. However, Infinity Games made sure that the only monstrous things were the Furzies.

How Is It Alive?

If you’re familiar with Sudoku, the grid partitions will be nothing new to you. You have a 9×9 grid divided by 3×3 squares. Then, they’ll give you three Tetris-like shapes you must place on the grid. The goal is to have the board as empty as possible for the longest amount of time. You can do this by completing a line, be it vertical, horizontal or one of the 3×3 squares. You also have the Furzies, square monsters that will clear a portion of the board depending on their color. You can merge the same-colored monsters to upgrade them to the next color and clear more squares. The difficulty of the shapes escalates depending on the number of points you have. Although it borrows a lot from other games, Furzies: Mergedoku feels like its own game entirely.

Personally, I didn’t care for the score. At first, I didn’t even notice it. I would just play until I lost then start a new game. Unlike other puzzle games where I tend to push myself to do it faster each time, with Furzies: Mergedoku, I didn’t feel the challenge was enough to push myself to do better. Not to say there’s no challenge, but it’s certainly not the type of challenge that motivates me. This game is more on the relaxing side of the spectrum, bordering on meh. There are some daily and weekly achievements you can achieve but nothing exciting. However, if you want to push yourself more, there is a classifier board with Google Play that will tell you your position compared to other players.

The Good Things

Aesthetically, it’s meant to relax you. The colors and the display are very minimalistic and easy on the eye. The dots of color are the Furzies. The rest is a monochromatic blue and white. You can change the color of the squares by purchasing them in the store with in-game currency, but I liked the blue better. So no, although it is the combination of other colorful games, this is not chaotic looking at all.

The excellent point in its favor is that the ads are minimal. So minimal that I completely forgot it was free-to-play. In all the time I played the game, I only encountered ads twice. You don’t need to spend anything. They give you in-game currency depending on the points you made, and there is next to nothing to spend it on. This was a relief considering that most of the puzzle games I play force an ad on you every second to third game. You can watch ads to get a little extra help when you feel stuck in a match.

Furzies: Mergedoku is a casual game for when you have a bit of time on your hands. Challenging enough, the mechanics bring the familiarity of Tetris and Sudoku without being either of them. The addition of furry square monsters gives you a hand. It’s good overall. Not addicting or exciting, just good.