ClearIt5

clearit is a series of matching games of the bubble shooter variety. the usp here is that the boards are surrounded by the balls to shoot towards the middle, ideally creating matches of at least 2 and eventually clearing everything.

it must've been different and refreshing enough in 2016 when the first one came out, but currently there are 14(!) seemingly identical games in the series, so the novelty has surely worn off by now. unless you're like me, playing one randomly for the first time (only this and 13 are on steam at the moment).

190 levels in this one, unlocked one by one within the 6 packs that are all available from the start. the first one has 40 levels with 2 colors, then 80 levels with 3 colors, 40 with 4 colors, 15 with 5 colors, 10 with 6 and 5 with 7, so they act as difficulty levels, basically.

controls only involve left-clicking balls on the perimeter and there are some power-ups appearing here and there to help out by destroying more stuff. no timer, move limit or score, the counter in the top right only shows how many balls you need to remove to move on to the next level. it's not all of them, but 'clear most of it 5' doesn't sound as good.

since balls on the sides refill endlessly and randomly, it's mindless busywork at first, but that's not unheard of among matching games, and the sound effects make it pretty satisfying. as more and more colors come into play, things gets trickier though and it's possible to fill the screen and get stuck. that's when a restart button would come in handy, instead of going back to the menu, then level select, then canceling the continue prompt (because mid-level progress is saved if you quit), and finally selecting the level you want to play.

the presentation is as colorful as it gets, settings are for a smaller non-resizable windowed mode and separate volumes, also available while playing a level. music comes and goes randomly, weird, and ambient volume resets to full every time, but goes back to the last setting after a level is started. on-screen level numbers would be nice, but there are multiple player profiles and languages in the main menu.

a game doesn't have to be complex to be fun, and this certainly isn't the former but very much the latter, for a while anyway. I wouldn't want to play thousands of levels, didn't even do all of the easy ones here, but it was a nice change of pace. there's a demo if you want to try it for yourself.

great game hour of fun makes you think

If you like Match 3 games you will like this game. Can be challenging but not so much that stages can not be completed. Really enjoyable ... just one more level ... this is the last level then I'm done ... just one more. And then the alarm goes of and you have to get ready for work.

Really liked this game. Challenging, but chill.