Thank you Jolly Crouton Media, Ltd. for sending us this game to review!

Splotches is a challenging single-player puzzle game with 120 uniquely titled levels, published and developed by Jolly Crouton Media, Ltd. The controls are simple and easy to remember: left-click over a splotch to take hold of it; move the mouse to drag the splotch to another location (of course, it will trail more paint behind it). Each level contains a rainbow orb, which must be destroyed via “brownsplosion” so that its happiness can be released and make the world a better place. To create said “brownsplosion”, primary paint colors must be mixed (red, yellow, blue), and since brownsplosions have a limited radius, they must be created near the rainbow orb so that it may properly be destroyed with the least amount of brownsplosions possible.

It is not just primary colors that can be mixed, though. Secondary colors can be mixed with primary colors that were not involved in their creation. To illustrate, orange (a secondary color) could not generate a brownsplosion when mixed with red or yellow (primary colors), because when red and yellow paints mix, orange is brought into being. Instead of making a brownsplosion, the secondary color would simply overlap whatever primary color it came into contact with. On the other hand, if orange was spread over blue (a primary color), a brownsplosion would occur, because blue did not contribute to the creation of orange. Pairings like this that create brownsplosions include yellow & purple, blue & orange, and red & green.

Although primary colors can be combined with each other to make a brownsplosion, secondary colors cannot. Mixing two secondary colors will result in black, which is never necessary for the completion of a level. In fact, it is an obstacle that often calls for the restarting of the level; it can not be cleaned up in any way. 

Sometimes, however, making a brownsplosion is difficult, because there may be filters throughout the level that only allow one specific color to pass through. That is not the only thing that may obstruct colors from uniting; walls with keyholes may be mandatory to unlock, and in order to unlock them, a brownsplosion must occur near the correct key (keys will only unlock the keyholes on walls that are the same color) so that the wall will move.

Conveyor belts often exist (more in the later levels) to transport splotches to different areas of levels that may be inaccessible to them otherwise. Paying attention to the direction of the conveyor is very important in these levels. When a splotch of color is spread, it trails splotches behind it, which may make things more difficult, especially when space is scarce.

Brownsplosions do not always do good, however. If a mine is in the brownsplosion’s radius, it will explode, and the level will automatically restart. By dragging a splotch part of the way into the next block, players can see how far the boom will go. The indicator will turn red if the brownsplosion will activate a mine, but it will turn green if the explosion will complete the level.

Once a level is completed, a star rating will appear. The rating can show from one to three stars. One star is earned for completion, the second is earned if the amount of brownsplosions that occurred was the minimum, and the third star was earned if the level was completed within a certain amount of time. The amount of time it took to finish the level will be shown along with the star rating.

Splotches sometimes are unable to spread. Bucket splotches are simply paint in a bucket; they mix and explode just like regular splotches, but they can not move around or spread like other splotches.

As is the music in Splotches, it tends to get stuck in my head sometimes, but it is still interesting. The music seems to always fit the situation, and I believe it allows me to think better. Though it seems to repeat, I never find it annoying until it plays in my head hours afterward. The sound effects used are semi-detailed; comprehensive enough to tell just what they are trying to portray, but not exceptional.

The art style used in this game is (as it should be, considering it is a game all about colors and paint) extremely colorful & bright. Splotches are somewhat realistic, as are most other items in Splotches. It is not the most descriptive style in the world, but it has enough detail to be appealing to the eye.

Moral warnings do not go very far in this title. Things like explosions (from the mines) exist, but other than that, Splotches is an irreproachable game when it comes to moral issues.

Though strenuous at times, I still find Splotches to be a very enjoyable title. I would recommend it to anyone who wants a pleasing puzzle game to play. Because Splotches is such a cute, convivial game, I look forward to future games by this developer.