Collapsus is a Candy Crush-style game with a twist. That would be a boring description if I didn’t mean it literally.
At PAX East, I got to go hands-on with the tile-matching game from Wraith Games, and it was the only booth I visited at the show where I was handed an old Kindle Fire. Apparently the game can run on anything, but I was glad to play on the e-reader because the device allowed me to take full advantage of the game’s gyroscopic mechanics.
This is where that literal twist comes in. In most ways, Collapsus is a traditional tile-matcher.
The rectangular board is filled with squares, each bearing symbols of different shapes and colors. Match four squares, and they’ll disappear.
For each move you take, a meter at the bottom of the screen ticks down. You refill it by making a successful match.
So far, so familiar. But, in a throwback to Game Boy Advance games like Yoshi Topsy-Turvy and Wario Ware: Twisted!, Collapsus uses a gyroscope to let players flip the board in any direction.
When the board pivots, gravity does too. So, if a star tile is in the next column over from the star pillar you’re currently building, you can just flip the game on its side, and use gravity to maneuver it into place.
It’s a cool way to change up a familiar genre, and I had a great time experimenting with it during the short time I spent with the game. Collapsus is also notable in how it goes above and beyond in its approach to accessibility.
Wraith Games’ creative director Jay Kidd mentioned how many options the studio has included in an attempt to make Collapsus playable for everyone, regardless of their abilities. He highlighted that they have “about a hundred accessibility options for disabled players,” including high-contrast mode, dyslexia-friendly font options, and a screen narrator that can tell players where blocks are using coordinates.
“Even if you’re blind, you can play the game,” Kidd says. “We wanted to make sure that anyone who is interested in games can play.”
After eight years of development, Collapsus is now available in Early Access on itch.io, where players can pay as much or as little as they want to pick it up right now.
