It’s a strange thing with associations. Despite of its originality,  “Disc Pop” by Starpolygon reminded me of a dozen other games. The game looks a bit like a Tron-themed “Simon Says” in an “Asteroid” world with the Game Mechanics of “Shufflepuck Café”. And it’s actually a mixture of everything above: It’s your goal to connect same-colored neon discs for points (by dragging them air hockey-like across the game board) and avoid unwanted collisions in space. Beam me up, Scotty!

The Simon-Says-Google-Chrome-Disc in the upper left corner can be combined with every other disc.

Pop, Pop, Pop-Muzik!

“Disc Pop” rocks! Or pops. Howsoever, the background music is a fantastic fit and keeps you nodding your head like a Yes-Man. You’ll get the electronic tunes you expect, but even if you’re not into EDM, you’ll get captivated by these catchy tunes. Trust me!

I also like the visual effects, the cool colors, and the sparkling particle explosions. The whole audio-visual appearance of the app is without any doubt a great accomplishment for an indie studio.

Talking about technical aspects, the app is also a shining example of stability and performance. I haven’t experienced a single lag, bad responding buttons or anything else of that kind. This is impeccable game development.

Things To Do

Technical-wise there is nothing to be criticized. However, as we all know there’s more to a game than just bits and bytes, graphics and music. And the game itself could even be more fun, if the developers clear two obstacles out of the way:

1. Monetization: I know, the Advanced Freemium Model (In-App Purchases + Advertisements) has won the race of making money with apps, but sometimes developers should still think of alternatives. And “Disc Pop” is simply too arcadesque to be put on the market like it’s 2018. I would rather pay 1,99€ to have a completely undisturbed gaming experience than deciding after every (!) death, in my case after 10-20 seconds, on quitting, spending diamonds or watching an ad. For this type of game, it’s sort of a flow-killer, what should explain why I wasn’t able to improve my skills. ^^
2. Balancing. Since the floating discs spawn from all corners, it happens quite often that two different-colored discs collide rather unnoticed, whilst you’re occupied with avoiding another collision in the middle of the game screen. This leads to a lot of frustrating deaths and is definitely a balancing problem. I don’t know if there’s a better way to handle this, but it should be mentioned here.

Since there are only two things having a negative impact on the flow and the fun, I’m pretty sure, that Starpolygon will get it right!

A power up! So come and get it!

The Verdict

“Disc Pop” is a feelgood-app. You’ll automatically love everything about it, as long as your game flow doesn’t get interrupted. Try it out for yourself and download the game here.

All pictures are in-game screenshots.