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Dweebs Drop is a new ZX Spectrum title which is inspired by the likes of Tetris and Candy Crush, and is the fourth physical release ever.
It’s a great puzzle game, but deceptively devious, since while it looked like I could spend all day playing a single game and would certainly hit 100,000 points, some bad luck at the randomness of the gems/dweebs which come next down the pipeline, and the columns will quickly fill up before you know it, and ‘game over’ is looming on the horizon.
Ideally, it’s a game for two people, but you can just as easily play with yourself (ahem) as the CPU takes you on as player 2. And what’s the name of the CPU? Schnoodles, which means you’re playing against programmer Adrian Cummings‘ delightful Dachshund.
Check out both gameplay videos in this review, and for the second one – which is in hard mode, I think this will be the way I play it from now on as it offers more of a challenge, especially after I played a single game of normal mode for 50 minutes, after three previous losses against Schnoodles. Also, the gameplay for both videos comes from playing the game on an earlier version of CSpect and it misses out some sections of text, whereas the latest version (with which I’ve since played it) supports more than 12 sprites per line and all looks fantastic.
Of course, it’s not just a case of getting three or more dweebs in a row, either vertically or horizontally, but there are bonus items. If you hit rare black dweebs or gems, these will add an additional row to your opponent’s side; you can drop your load into either an egg or a rainbow gem in order to eradicate all dweebs of the same colour, as well as doing similar to the jumbo-sizes dweebs/gems for additional points. However, in the thick of the game, you do lose track what each of these features do in terms of impacting on the gameplay 😉
And before anyone asks why we’re getting a Tetris/Candy Crush-style game on a new machine… well, since time began (or rather, since Tetris was created) there’s been so many different versions of these games over the years, on all sorts of consoles, computers and devices, each with their own unique style, and… they’ve all sold a ton. So the demand is there!
So, yeah, that answers your question why. And it’ll sell loads, so jump on board!
Also, tell Adrian that you bought it after reading this review!
Score: 7/10
Dweebs Drop is released this Sunday, February 17th, on ZX Spectrum Next from Spectrum Next Games. UPDATE: As of 2020, the game is not available as either a digital download, nor limited edition physical copy.
Important info:
- Developer: Spectrum Next Games
- Publisher: Spectrum Next Games
- Players: single-player, two-player
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.