There are approximately 1Â billion tile matching games in the Google Play Store. EyeCons is a a new 2-tile matching game that offers some unique twists as well as look & feel. It’s a great selection for all ages, as there is almost no text to get through. The game is actually a take on a board game of the same names from Hersch games, for you trivial buffs.
Setup
Easy enough; download for free from the Play Store. Once on your device, go ahead an open it…there is a screen to register via either your Facebook login or an email/password combo, but can also skip this step if you don’t want the social aspect to the game.
Once in you select single player and level 1 to get rocking. On this setup screen, though you can also see your profile (provided you’ve registered & logged in), adjust settings (sound & in-app purchases), shop for said in-app purchases, as well as a help/tutorial screen.
Gameplay
Eyecons is a pretty simple game to get rolling on. You are 
provided a screen full of stacked tiles, each with a unique icon-type of picture on them. The goal is equally simple: match any two like tiles by tapping on them. This makes them disappear and reveal the tiles below it (think Mahjong). Speed is key here; each level has a countdown timer, and your goal is to beat the timer to advance. But the game wouldn’t be complete without a set of power-ups and other available accelerators.
Examples are:
- Hammer: Elimates a tile and its buried match with a single tap.
- Shuffle: Rearranges the tiles to give you a fresh view.
- Hint: Gives you a visual highlight of an available pair to clear.
- Bombs & Super Bombs: Clears 2 or 3 pairs of tiles (respectively) .
- Clock: Adds 5 more seconds to your countdown timer.
You accumulate these power-ups through good gameplay. You can also purchase these in the setup screen using coins either earned or bought using in-app purchases. The effectiveness of these power-ups was rather muted though; I found the effort to abort your focus on the tiles to hit a power-up almost wasn’t worth it…..I would prefer the power-ups to be more rare but also more powerful.
There is also a sort-of “turbo bar” that appears when you’ve matched a certain number of tile pairs. This bar allows you to earn multi-fold in coins with every subsequent tile match during its existence, but it depletes quickly so you need to max out your speed while this is up.
Graphics and Sound
This area is a real highlight of the game, for two reasons:
- The dark overall theme is pretty nice on the eyes, allowing for longer focus on the screen before your eyes tire out. A simple but very effective choice for the player.
- Both the the sound and the colors are punchy but not all-out garish, like in so many tile match games out there. In too many other titles the “bubble-gum bonanza” effect makes me want to put the game down within seconds, not to mention all the zany background music and sound effects flying out of my devices constantly.
EyeCons really dials this back; the music is constant but not at all intrusive (and completely mutable in the setup menu)…..and the sound effects upon tapping and clearing titles is a set of very simple ‘clicks’ and ‘boops’. In fact it almost sounds fickle to say that some sounds may be a little too subtle, as when you tap on non-matching tiles, nothing much happens…..I found myself re-tapping a couple of times occasionally only to finds that I was a little off on my matching.
Overall
EyeCons is a pretty fun game to play: easy to pick up and learn, very re-playable, and not annoyingly loud or obnoxious in any way. I highly recommend this title for your Android!
Download EyeCons from the Play Store for free here.
