Everyone loves to play games and there are tons of them out there, but not all games are suitable for everyone, especially children to play. I myself have children and I try not to let them watch me play violent games, I try and steer them towards educational type games or just basic fun games where they can enjoy themselves and have fun at the same time without exposing them to a lot of violence. There are lots of companies out there making games that aim to fill this niche, that are fun for everyone but yet children can play and enjoy as well. One such company is Kristanix, and they’ve sent me over their latest game called Zamby and the Mystical Crystals, yeah I know the name sound a bit hokey, but it truly is a fun game, it has quite a few features, with many levels and I actually found the puzzles a bit challenging myself as I progressed in the game. I installed it on my children’s computer and they love it, they’ve spent many hours guiding Zamby along on his quest, and I didn’t have to worry to much about what they were being exposed to…

Game Review: Zamby and the Mystical Crystals

Reviewed by: Kristofer Brozio AkA Dracos

Sponsor: Kristanix

Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:

Zamby and the Mystical Crystals is a unique puzzle game set in a vast, enchanted fantasy land. Help Zamby in his quest to gather the mystical light crystals!

Zamby is filled with hours upon hours of captivating brain training puzzles. A non-violent game that the whole family can enjoy

Features:

-150 different levels

-Non-violent, family friendly gameplay

-No time-limit pressure

-50 levels tailored for kids

-Unlock secret levels and ancient knowledge

-Create your own unique levels in the level editor

-Easy to learn gameplay and simple controls

-See video solution for every level if you get stuck

-Download free levels from the Internet

Playing Zamby

The gameplay in Zamby is very simple to grasp. You use the arrows on your keyboard to walk around. Your goal is to pick up all the crystals in a level. Along your journey through snow-filled mountains, green fields, wet swamps and deep forests, you will encounter a host of different monsters.

The monsters will always stand perfectly still unless you move. This means that there is no-time limit to beat any of the challenges. Spend anything from a few minutes to several hours trying to figure out a single level!

To help you in your quest, your guiding spirit will give you useful tips. If you get stuck, you can ask for hints or watch a video solution of the level. If you make a mistake, you can instantly undo every wrong move you’ve made by pressing the U key. The game will also store your progress as you go along, so you can continue playing the next day.

With six different monsters and a bunch of different environments, there is great variety in the types of puzzles you will face. No two levels are the same! In addition, as you progress through your journey, you will unlock secret missions, and uncover ancient knowledge to fill your encyclopedia with!

Price: US $19.95 (download -For Windows & Mac, 20 MB)

– 60-day Money Back Guarantee –

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– Instant Download –

{mospagebreak title=Installation, Testing and Gameplay}

Installation, Testing and Gameplay:

This is a download only game, so there are no box shots to show you so we’ll just jump right into things here… The download is small only 20MB so even those still on dial-up will not have a problem with the size of Zamby.

Once installed we are greeted with a bright and colorful title screen featuring the main character, Zamby, holding a mystical crystal. If you can’t tell by his one eye, Zamby is a cyclops. To the right of Zamby is the main menu, here you have a few choices: Play, Help, Options, Encyclopedia, Level Editor and Exit.

There’s not much to the options, just very basic choices for sound and music volume, fullscreen on/off, an option to show a grid on the screen and a choice to have the music looped or continuous.

The Encyclopedia choice takes us to a special section of unlocks, here you can find out secrets of the game and learn more by completing levels to unlock each article in the encyclopedia.

The Help menu option is pretty big, seven pages total, but it gives the story of the game, how to play, it lists the different types of monsters, and other things pertaining to gameplay, the last page is the credits for the game.

The Level Editor is a very easy to use drag and drop system that allows you to create new levels quickly and easily. My kids played with it a bit, but they found the actual game was a lot more fun.

At the main menu if you click ‘Play’ you are greeted with another small menu, here you can start the main game ‘Quest for the Crystals’, or choose ‘Kids Adventure’. The ‘Kids Adventure’ is obviously an easier version of the game aimed at children, my two oldest children are five and six years old and they found it fairly easy to play. The next choice on the menu is ‘Secret Missions’, which is missions unlocked when you complete other levels in the main quest, essentially bonus levels of the game. The last option is ‘Addon Levels’, here you can use the levels you created or even download levels that other users created from the Kristanix site.

Once you start the game you are greeted with a map of sorts, it appears you are on an island and you need to travel along to complete your quest. There are numerous colored dots all over the island that indicate the levels, blue are completed levels, green are new or unlocked levels yet to be completed, and red are the locked levels. On the left side of the screen you can see the level number, level name and a brief summary of the level you have selected. Just click ‘Play’ to start the level.

Zamby is basically all puzzles that get progressively harder as you go along, the idea of the game is to get to collect the Mystical Crystals, but as with any good game there are things that will stand in your way. In the beginning levels you’ll see a larger red cyclops that will offer hints to help you along as well.

When you complete a level you are sometimes greeted with a surprise screen where it tells you that you have unlocked a new Encyclopedia entry.

Things like, spiders, wizards, ice and water to name a few obstacles you’ll encounter. Your primary ‘weapon’ for Zamby is the ability to move boxes around, these are mainly for defensive moves like blocking a wizards fireball from shooting you, but they can also be used as bridges to get across water and to block a spider from attacking you. Later in the game you do get the ability to use bombs, which help to clear the path to make it a bit easier…

One interesting feature that I and my children found very helpful is the undo move option, at any time you can press ‘U’ to undo the last move you made, or you can keep pressing it multiple time to undo multiple moves as well.

Gameplay is very easy, but it can get challenging, Zamby and the Mystical Crystals will offer even the most seasoned gamer a challenge with some of the puzzles offered. It might seem like a child’s game, but under the surface it’s much more than that, it is a true thinking game that will cause you to stop and think quite a few moves ahead as to what you need to do, it sort of reminded me of playing chess actually.

My children love it, and especially the fact that they saw me playing one of ‘their’ games they thought it was that much cooler. It did get frustrating for them at times as there is some reading involved and they are just learning to read. For the most part though they caught on very quick and only needed my help when they really got stuck on one of the puzzles. So it’s not quite a young child’s game, but small children five and above should have no real problems playing with a little help of course. My children seemed to jump right in once I explained it to them and showed then how to play a few times, over the course of a week the questions got fewer and fewer till now they don’t even ask for my help while playing…

One thing I found cool was the dual interface, you can use either mouse or the cursor keys to move Zamby around, but I did find it much easier to control Zamby with the cursor keys, it allowed for my precise movement of the character.

Summary:

I can’t be too critical of a game like this, it’s not meant to be a very serious game and is intended as pure fun for people of any age.

There are no real hardcore graphics involved so it should play perfect even on an older system, it sort of reminds me of Zelda and such games on the SNES and NES actually. Zamby is fun, pure and simple fun, that will offer many hours of enjoyment to anyone who plays it.

I think everyone will like this game, especially if you have children. The only people I don’t see liking it are teenagers possibly where Halo and such more mature games are more the trend, they’ll most likely consider it too childish for them, but hey it’s their loss…

DragonSteelMods gives Zamby and the Mystical Crystals a 5 out of 5 score and our Recommended Award as well.

Pros:

-Non-violent

-Great for kids and all ages

-Develops puzzle solving skills

-Easy to play

-Level editor for custom levels

-Dual interface (cursor or mouse)

-150+ levels

Cons:

-None really

I would like to thank Kristanix for the chance to review Zamby and the Mystical Crystals and for their continued support of DSM.

review# 299