Since social media’s inception, film and literature haven’t been afraid of creating dystopic fantasies that warn against humanity’s narcissism stemming from its self-promotional elements, but recently there’s been some interest from the gaming community as well. Elemelons is a lighthearted puzzle game, which takes a humorous jab at society’s ever-growing vanity and flips it back on itself.
The story goes that with humans too distracted by their various social networks, the world has dissolved around them and its guardians, Earth, Water, Air and Fire, were transformed into melons. Aptly named the Elemelons, they each received a representative colour and were defined by the four most popular social media influencers of our time. Now trapped in space and in melon form, the Elemelons are powerless and it’s up to you (the gamer) to help them find their way home.
The colour-matching puzzle game is easy to learn and the cute graphics and charming sense of humour imbued throughout make it highly addictive to boot. Four elemental colours make up the border with the various melons appearing in the middle; it’s your job to swipe them towards their corresponding colours before they burst into the wrong one. The game starts off slow and easy but soon makes life more difficult by throwing in multiple melons at a time, which can bump into each other sending them soaring in the wrong direction and alternating the colour border, forcing you to act quickly in order to change the direction of your melons before it’s too late.
The developers have gone the extra mile with the character development of each of their four Elemelons; you can find their descriptions by following the app’s link ‘Discover the Elemelons universe’. Although irrelevant to the actual playing of the game, I think that the extra time taken and thought put into each of the characters adds a greater depth to the storyline and it is all the more absorbing for it.
Another refreshing twist is that, although Elemelons is free to download, the advertorials are optional, giving the power back to the gamer. If you choose to sit through them, you will be reimbursed with an extra life on your profile; alternatively, if you feel that your time would be better spent saving the universe, then you can bulk buy lives from the ‘Buy Goodies’ page.
If you want try your thumb at saving the universe, then download Elemelons from iTunes today and start swiping!
