er small icons, coupled with as much time as you like to scratch your head and figure out what the hell you're supposed to do. A Prism puzzle isn't the most intuitive thing you'll ever encounter, but it's easy to pick up on the core mechanics quickly, especially since you'll probably breeze through the first fifteen puzzles or so before any kind of challenge kicks in.What you'll be doing for these first puzzles -- and the numerous ones after, albeit with a few wrinkles thrown in -- is directing the constant stream of light vomiting forth from the Bulboids into the direction of the Glowbos, who need that tasty whiteness to survive. Glowbos can't move, and are often perched in strangely isolated parts of the map, but you can slide the Bulboids around at your whim to try and solve the puzzle. That's basically it.
Prism gets increasingly harder with the introduction of colored Glowbos, who require a certain color of light to be satiated. Prisms then obligingly come into the picture -- direct a beam of light towards one, and it'll split light into three colors, the very same colors of those ravenous yet picky Glowbos. You'll also get to fiddle with mirrors, which'll redirect a beam of light at a ninety-degree angle, and splitters, which take in a single beam of light and -- surprise! -- split it into two opposite directions. You'll encounter a couple more objects over the course of the game, but the core goal stays the same: feed the Glowbos, and feed them now.
It's a pretty satisfying game to play. Some of the later puzzles can even get enormously diffic
ult, providing the great satisfaction that comes only in wrestling with a puzzle for the better part of an hour before finally solving it. For those particular challenges, Prism might not be your first choice for gaming on the go, but it's still a great title to take with you whenever you want a different kind of puzzler.I can even make the argument that Prism might not be able to hold your interest for more than fifteen to thirty minutes in one sitting. The basic puzzle-solving isn't well-suited for sinking hours into during one go, but if you can put the game down and come back to it later, returning for a quick burst of play, you'll definitely get your money's worth out of it.
But even if you grow tired of working through the game's long list of puzzles, you can tackle the other modes, one of which is genuinely interesting. Time mode tasks you with clearing sets of ten puzzles as quickly as you possibly can. Every puzzle you solve will add seconds back onto the clock, encouraging you to waste as little time as possible, especially if you're aiming to earn the gold medal for each tier. I'd definitely recommend working through some of the non-timed puzzles first to familiarize yourself with the basic mechanics before tackling Time mode, but be careful to not forget about it, as it's a pretty entertaining alternative to the main mode.
