Arcade Game Central

Star Collapse is a new puzzle game that offers an interesting variation on the “Bust-A-Move” type of game, exemplified by titles such as Aqua Bubble, in which you’re in control of a stationary cannon that shoots colored bubbles into a multi-colored descending field of jumbled-up bubbles. Your task is to pop the bubbles before they reach you, by aiming your cannon and creating groupings of three or more bubbles.

Star Collapse adds several intriquing changes to this classic gaming genre:

• The game is set in outer space, rather than on an abstract gameboard.
• Rather than rows of descending bubbles, your target is a spinning star made up of colored balls.
• Rather than a stationary bubble cannon, you control a starship that shoots colored balls.
• The star begins life as a small cluster of balls, but grows rapidly as more balls fly in from space. If the star grows too large, it goes supernova and explodes, destroying your ship (or, as the game says, “you loose”).

Your objective is the same - to eliminate the target before time runs out, by creating groups of three or more balls - but the changes to the mechanics of the game make this an interesting and unique game. You control your ship with the mouse, moving it left and right, using the left button to fire balls, and the right button to make the star spin faster.

Star Collapse runs either in windowed mode (at selectable resolutions ranging from 640×480 to 1600×1200) or full screen, and features crisp graphics and good sound. You can play the game in either “campaign” or “adrenaline” mode, with the first offering increasing levels of complexity and speed, and the second being full-on arcade mode. In either mode, the game is plenty challenging, and will test the limits of your skills.

Star Collapse was created by Inviting Games, an independent team of developers located in Russia, whose first game, SILENT ATTACK - The Near Danger Zone, was released in late 2004. Silent Attack, unlike Star Collapse, is not a puzzle game, but is more of a shooter, in the Gunner vein.

If you’re a fan of bubble-buster style games, take a look at the challenging and addictive Star Collapse.