If, like me you lost many hours playing Tetris, you may have been disappointed with all the variations on the theme that were too close to the original game you loved “as is”. Here, 7 & 17 is sufficiently different to be a challenge of its own, with just a mild taste of the past. Progressively understanding the game rules consequences, you’ll need to build up a strategy to get past the first levels. The learning curve is made easy with contextual help and hints. Hints were very useful during my beginner’s period, but when I gained experience, I felt better off disabling them as they became distracting.
The idea is very simple: random dice are falling and you must align them horizontally or vertically by groups of three that add up to 7 or 17. This will clear them out.
Like me, you may have been concerned by the idea of adding up numbers quickly while under stress. But don’t worry; it’s more like pattern matching, as there are not many possible combinations. Very rapidly, I didn’t even bother trying to add up dice, as there are only five patterns to remember:
7 = 1 + 1 + 5
7 = 1 + 2 + 4
7 = 1 + 3 + 3
7 = 2 + 2 + 3
17 = 5 + 6 + 6
A sum of 7 gives you only 1 point, but with all three dice of the same color you get 7 points. For the 5 + 6 + 6 pattern, you get respectively 17 or 71 points. Clearly, your purpose is soon going to get as many single colored 5 + 6 + 6 patterns as possible. Nevertheless, this is going to be made tougher by a “one more thing” item in the game rules, stating that you should not align three sixes, 666 being the “number of the beast”… I’ll let you try on your own to see what happens!
On the top right corner of your screen, there is the “Supply” that you can tap to choose which die is going to fall next. This does help a lot building up your strategy when things are still slow.
Additionally, when the patterned three dice are of the same color you will also get a “bonus” which enters the supply for future use. Bonuses fall like any other die and can really get part of the strategy you build up: remover, duplicator, randomizer, laser, etc. It seems to me that there is also an “off rule” mega bonus, but I didn’t quite understand what triggered it yet…
The three skins are a nice touch: dice, numbers and textures. Especially the last one, which will let the colorblind enjoy the game!
This App is game center enabled with achievements and leaderboard. At this time there are a little more than 300 gamers in the leaderboard, but only less than ten above 1000 points. I didn’t get up to there yet, but these scores still seem to be very achievable though.
A downside of 7 & 17 is that it’s rapidly getting addictive, searching for the perfect strategy… I am going to leave you now and try to challenge myself in the 1000 to 2000 points zone!
[appbox appstore id919626983]
