Overview
Dulp is an arcade/puzzle game that has you launching colored orbs into a multi-colored spinning ring. Your goal is to eliminate all of the ring’s colored segments by hitting them with an orb of the same color.
Developer: Nexx Studio
Price: Free (ad supported, in-app purchases)
Highlights
- Simple to play
- Challenging
- Google Play Games support
Setup
Dulp requires no setup. Download it from the Google Play Store and you’re ready to go!
Impressions
First and foremost, Dulp is deceptively simple. On your screen you will see small, colored orbs. Above those orbs you will see a spinning ring made up of segments of varying sizes and color. Your job is to launch each of your colored orbs into its corresponding color segment on the ring. When you accomplish this, that colored segment will disappear. You repeat this process until you have eliminated all of the ring’s segments.
Sounds simple enough, right? Dulp’s genius begins to shine with each passing level gradually increasing in difficulty. The changes are subtle, but effective. First, you’ll start seeing bigger rings. After that, you’ll start seeing rings that spin faster. Then, you’ll start seeing two spinning rings, one within the other. As if that’s not scary enough, those two rings will begin to spin faster with each passing level, and the number of colored segments they contain will increase in number and vary even further in size.
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To make matters worse, you are not able to choose the order your colored orbs appear in. This is where the puzzle element comes in. Because the rings in any given level will have segments that are the same color; and because those segments will vary in size, you will have to really think and strategize about which segment you choose to hit first because that decision may determine whether or not you can hit a segment on the inner ring. By level 13, I was ready to pull my hair out; metaphorically of course. Did I mention that Dulp has 200 levels?
Dulp not only plays great, but it also looks and sounds great. The game’s graphics are simple and colorful, and they lend themselves well to the theme of simplicity. Dulp features very few sound effects and its one music track reminds me of something you might hear in a quiz gameshow. This is not a bad thing. All of these elements blend well together and help Dulp feel like a complete package that accomplishes what it was intended to.
I have only one complaint about Dulp: the ads. There is an always present banner ad at the bottom of the screen that never disappears while playing the game. To complement the banner ad, you will also see full page ads randomly 
displayed between levels. The full pages ads vary between static and video. Thankfully, Dulp is fun enough and challenging enough that the ads are worth putting up with. You also have the option to spend $1.99 to eliminate the ads altogether (and also, apparently, increase the game’s performance).
Conclusion
Dulp is a solid game that packs a lot of challenge into a small, simple package. Nexx Studio was able to seamlessly blend various elements of a simplistic nature that, together, create a product that feels complete and satisfyingly complex.
Dulp feels like a game that was intended to be simple, yet challenging, and every element of this game lends itself quite well to that design. Even with its obtrusive ads, Dulp is so fun and so challenging that it is quite easy to overlook them. Give Dulp a try. I think you’ll like it.
