Magnetica

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Magnetica

Developer(s)	Mitchell Corporation
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Release date(s)	^NA June 5, 2006 ^EU January 6, 2007
Genre(s)	Puzzle
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Platform(s)	Nintendo DS
Media	Cartridge

Magnetica (Jap. Shunkan Puzzloop, Eur. Actionloop') is a puzzle game for the Nintendo DS. It was revealed at Nintendo Japan's 2006 Conference.

In the game, marbles roll down a twisted path toward the goal and it's up to the player to stop them by using the touch screen to launch new marbles into the oncoming ones. The DS touchscreen is used 'flick' the marbles from their launch point to their destination with the stylus. The marbles will disappear if players match three or more marbles of the same type; marbles of the same color are magnetically attracted to each other over any length of wide open space, and thus, the possibility of chain disappearances can occur.

The game is over if any marble reaches a specific point, usually near the center of each level, but using the magnetic properties of the marbles can allow one to pull marbles away from this point. Bonus items attached to marbles can, for example, temporarily slow down the rate the marbles advance or cause all marbles of a color to disappear.

In addition to the main survival mode of play, the player can take in a quest mode, where they must clear boards under certain conditions, and a puzzle mode, where a fixed arrangement of marbles around the board must be cleared using only the few marbles made available to the player.

[edit] Publishing details

The game was created by Mitchell Corporation and published by Nintendo. The first game in the series was manufactured by Mitchell as an arcade video game cabinet in 1998 as PuzzLoop. The game was also released under the name Ballistic for home systems such as Sony's PlayStation console and Nintendo's Game Boy Color. The concept of PuzzLoop inspired several shareware games including Zuma and Luxor.