BounceOut is similar to other games I've played. Like many Astraware games it falls within the falling tile genre of games. In this particular game your goal is to remove three or more consecutive balls of the same color or pattern from a hexagonal grid. BounceOut is basically Bejeweled on steroids, the same game switched from a standard rectangular grid to the hexagonal one.
If you like Bejeweled you're sure to love BounceOut. If you haven't played Bejeweled or other games of this ilk, let me tell you a bit more about the gameplay. The gameboard has 10 staggered columns each with 8 balls. The stagger is half of a ball long, creating a checkerboard effect and giving each ball six neighbors. The grid is filled with balls of all different colors and patterns. You must match at least three in a row in any straight line path - vertical, diagonal with slope 1, and diagonal with slope -1. If you can match more than three in a row at once or make more than one match with a single move you'll get bonus points. Matched balls are removed from the board and the balls above them fall naturally, sliding diagonally until their direction is changed by bumping into a ball secured in place. You can often make more matches along the way and get bonus points. Much like Bejeweled you move by switching the place of two adjacent balls. Also like Bejeweled you can only move balls if your move makes a match.
BounceOut is played in levels. In each level you have to remove a certain number of balls from the board, the number increasing as the levels increase. At the end of each level you're given a bonus and a clean board to start the next level. There's no real difference in play in the levels except that at around the third level black balls start appearing on the board. These are balls that cannot be moved and so block other possible matches.
You can play either easy or timed games. Easy games can be played as slowly as you'd like - your only goal is to continue making matches. The game ends when you can't make any matches. In the timed level you need to move as fast as possible because the game will end when time runs out. The timer, two sticks of dynamite lining the sides of the gameboard, only runs down when you aren't in the process of making moves. If you can start another move as soon as the cascade of falling balls from your previous move ends you won't lose time. The timer is reset at the beginning of each level and although the time limit seems fixed, you need to get more and more balls to finish levels as you progress so time does start coming into play.
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