Quadratum: Psychedelic multiplayer color fun!
This is another hidden gem where the screenshots just don’t do the game justice. Although it looks like a mess of colours on the screen, it’s actually a fantastic variation of a Flood game. Don’t let the 70s illuminated dance floor look deceive you… it’s addictive!
Gameplay: It’s a Flood puzzle game, which means that it’s all about expanding your territory so that you own as many of the board pieces as possible. You start off with one square in the corner, and you can change to one of the other colors. If there are any adjacent squares which are the same color as your territory then they’ll become part of your land mass. Three other opponents have the same objective of trying to get as much board space as possible, so you need to outmanoeuvre them. Although there are seven colors, you can’t just select any color to navigate wherever you want. You can only select the colors which aren’t already possessed by your opponents… and this is where some of the game strategy element of the game comes into play.
There’s one more big difference to this Flood variant though… there are powerups! Hidden around the board there are special abilities scattered around. In total there are six powerups and they allow you to
- see all the powerup squares,
- shuffle the unowned squares,
- seed a square randomly,
- have one additional move in your current turn,
- hide all the colors on the board,
- bomb an area and remove any ownership.
Although none of the powerups are explained, you’ll eventually get bombed by the AI, and the ensuing frustration is enough to make you seek out these bonus powers so that you can tip the board balance in your favour. One last key aspect to this Flood game are the different maps which have bottle necks and constrictions. These maps mean that you can have different tactics for absorbing the playing field.
Music and Sound Effects: There’s only music in the opening screen, and after that you only have sound effects. Bear in mind though, that this is kind of like a chess game so music isn’t too important or necessary. The sound effects are just enough to lift the game and make it interactive.
Graphics and Animations: The setup is clean, simple and reflects some of the nature of the game. If I were being brutal then perhaps it could be a bit more snazzy and have more life put into the game with textures and more particle effects. But much like the music, these extra elements aren’t necessary.
Addictive Gameplay: This game is quite absorbing! Although initially I had no idea what to expect, once I understood all the parts of the game it was very fun and fulfilling. Everytime I’ve played the game I’ve really enjoyed the session and it’s definitely a great time waster. It’s quite hard to say exactly why I like playing this, but I think it’s because it’s got good tactical elements about it and it’s easier and faster than a chess or checkers game. My only quarms are that you can’t stop and restart whilst part way through a tournament, and perhaps there could be another harder AI difficulty mode which is even more challenging.
Multiplayer madness: There’s a really funky game mode built in which lets you play against multiple players on the same device… this solves the problem of getting a harder AI, because real people can come up with much deeper and difficult strategies than any AI! You can play 2 or 4 player modes, and you can add in AIs if you don’t actually have 4 players.
Rating: 4/5 Quadratum is an awesome multiplayer Flood color game with an imbalanced number of 5 star ratings on Google Play. The game is very accurate in it’s own description where it says this is good for developing one’s logical and tactical thinking. If you like strategy games then I highly recommend this simple game and you should definitely try the free version.
Quadratum Promotional Youtube Video
Quadratum Tips from Android Games Review
- Assuming you’re the top left player, then focus on closing out the opportunities for the bottom left opponent. That means you should try and block off all the choke points so that you are free to roam in the larger expanse. More generally you should stop the opponent closest to you first.
- As soon as you’ve closed off one opponent then work on closing off the next closest one (rather than just trying to increase the size of your land mass).
- Always focus on reach and positioning rather than picking up the small tidbit additions to your territory.
- The colour masking is only useful against real players and it’s totally ineffective against the AI.
- If you have a color seed and you’re playing in a tournament then save it so you can use it at the beginning of the next round. It has the most beneficial effects when used at the beginning of a round.
If you want to get a sense of scale about how much better this game is compared to some others out there, then check out our review of Flood and Color Invasion (we used to be much harsher when reviewing games!)
Quadratum QR Code
(Click on the image or scan the barcode with your Android phone to see this game in Google Play)
Developers: Machaon Studio
