The fountain of youth had eluded many, if not all, of those who tried to search for it, but even so, the legend is still fresh in people’s imaginations. In the Jungle Quest game, you are tasked with searching for this famous legend once again, through a match-3 puzzle installment by Alawar Games.
In Jungle Quest, you play the role of Cathie Jones as she tries to discover and find the fountain of youth. An epidemic had spread throughout her area and various disasters had been occurring throughout the land. To save humanity, the only solution is to find this source that can heal everything. And with her grandmother’s trusty diary in her hand, she embarks on her own adventure full of unknown dangers ahead.
The actual game mechanics follow the traditional match-3 rules where you are supposed to match 3 gems of the same color by swapping them with adjacent gems. Your goal is to collect all available crystals on the board within the specified time limit. Crystals are embedded in gems, and essentially you just have to blast the gems to dust before you can collect all of the crystals.
Completing the level in less time will earn you medals based on how well you did in the final round. Various trophies are also given as a reward for achieving various milestones set by the game. I liked this feature because it encourages the player to overcome challenges, and with Jungle Quest’s flat difficulty curve, most of the low level trophies can already be collected during the first few levels.
Boosts are also available, but you need to buy them from the shop before you can use them on the next level. Buying items in the shop requires gold, and using these power-ups requires mana. Both coins and mana can be collected faster by playing skillfully through the levels. And while some of the powerups are pretty useless, most of the stronger ones are very effective at handling the later levels of the game.
