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This is ain't no Lumines

Published November 8, 2010
2 out of 5 starsScore: 40/100

Turba is Latin word meaning crowd. Other than the online leaderboard there is no other relation to world Turba in this indie puzzle.
 
Game-play for this silly titled game is lifted from Bejeweled where three blocks are matched to make way for more blocks. Difference with Turba is that the game boards are generated randomly based on the music file loaded in the beginning of the game. This might sound like a perfect combination of Bejewled and Lumines. Unfortunately Turba is way more of the casual time waster "game" than the stylish Lumines that requires some piece of skills. 

This looks fun
 Blocks are selected by using the left mouse button. One chain of at least three blocks for each four colors can be selected. The block chains are cleared with right mouse button. Massive combos can be made with chains having multiple blocks across all colors. A random bomb block will also spawn occasionally and if this is not cleared in time. A group of black blocks will take its place, These black blocks can not be removed. Black blocks will also appear if not a proper block chain was not cleared. IE. Only two blocks chains and so on. The black blocks never become a problem since all the rows keep on descending and changing. 

 It is difficult to understand how such a basic looking user interface could have been done in year 2010 still. Turba looks a some random a 90's shareware application or a children game with it's big icons and basic colors. IE. ugly. There are puzzle games with even simpler interface that still manage to relay more modern look. IE. Polarium.
There are three different games modes: free-play, ascending and descending. As well as unlockables and ingame achievements. On the Steam version there are also 20 Steam achievements

I hate giving a indie game bad score. This is just too casual game for anyone in GB's audience to like. The music aspect adds nothing exciting to the game. Having knowledge of your own songs serve no purpose. And only difference anyway seems to be the tempo of the song. Majority of electric and metal music seem to be too fast and making the game too hectic. 

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