My Review of Elixir by Astraware

I had an opportunity to review some of the older games by Astraware. Elixir is one of two I was able to review. I choose Elixir as I think its a great game that hasn't got a lot of attention.

Game Play:
The game play of Elixir is simple yet catchy. You need to collect capsules of elixir and fill your diminishing supply before you run out. Sounds simple enough, but the catch is you can’t remove a capsule that is directly supporting another capsule. At first is rather easy, but as things speed up, you become more frantic desperately searching for another capsule to remove. You can also remove Bonus capsules that will increase your supply a lot and can be a huge help!

There are two different game modes: Easy and Hard. The difference between them is the Hard mode starts you are level 30 for speed. This means everything is moving quite fast and removing the capsules before your supply runs out is really difficult. Right now I’m on the Easy mode and at level 20. I’m already thinking that I probably won’t make it to 30 as I’ve already come quite close to running out of elixir.

There is also a tweak where you can have negative scoring during a game. Basically negative scoring happens when you try to remove a capsule that cannot be removed because it is supporting another capsule. This attempt results in a lost of some points.

Graphics and Sound:

Now, the graphics on Elixir are not that of say Bejeweled or Chuzzle, but the game still looks good on my Lifedrive. I’d probably like an update to Elixir’s graphics, just to make it look better with today’s newer devices. That said, because of its lack of high end graphics, it does make Elixir less of a memory hog. The game sounds are minimal too, but that’s ok for me. I’m not much into background music on most games anyways. I usually turn them off.
You are also able to choose from different tile sets for the capsules which can help improve the look of the game. Your choices are Round, Flat, and Square. I really like the Square tile set as I think it looks the best of the three on my Lifedrive.

General Thoughts:

Some people may not think to purchase an older game like Elixir when shopping for games; however you do get several positives. First off, Elixir takes a little amount of space on your device. It only takes 149 KB on my Lifedrive. Games today can take several megabytes on your device. I frequently delete big games when I’ve beat them or am tired of them and then install another large game to play for a spell. With smaller games like Elixir, I leave on since they don’t hog a lot of memory and find myself playing them a lot more. Elixir is the perfect game to play for a few minutes. You can easily pick it up later and not miss a beat.
Second, Elixir is only $4.95 and to me that is a steal. A price like that makes Elixir a hard game to pass up.
Third, you don’t need to feel guilty about having a game on your device that won’t hog precious memory or a game that you won’t play as Elixir proves to be quite entertaining.

Conclusion:

Elixir is a fun and catchy game that won’t cost you megabytes of memory or lots of dollars. It’s not high end on the graphics or sound, but Elixir will provide an enjoyable gaming experience and one that will keep you coming back for more. I’ve certainly enjoyed reviewing Elixir and it will be staying on my Lifedrive! Four out of five Palm Addict Palms!

Pros:
Cheap
Fun gameplay
Small in Memory-size

Cons:
OK graphics (helps keep the small memory-size though)