Who wants a clever, intricate puzzle game that also requires quick wits and nimble fingers? If you find yourself saying “I do!” then we’ve got a game for you. The good folks at PlayMobility have a visually sharp, and it-gets-harder-as-it-goes mobile game for Nokia’s touch-enabled devices called Ballix that is certain to both challenge and entertain you. (You may remember PlayMobility for their game “Addix” which we reviewed back in March.)

The premise of the game is quite simple: as different colored balls drop from the top of the screen, make sure they go into a hole of the same color elsewhere on screen. Do this over and over, as more and more balls continue to fall, and don’t mess it up. When the balls go into the right holes, you do well – when the balls go into the wrong holes, you lose. Most of the holes have a door that you click on to open or close as needed – it’s safe to assume you don’t always want the door to be open!

To make things more interesting, Ballix adds in a wide variety of objects to help you move the balls to the correct destination, including levers or flippers that can be toggled left or right, as well as chunky pieces of pipe that can also be turned back and forth. In higher levels you will find other objects, like ramps that jump your ball over the course; a ‘turn table’ that you can twist to align different colored holes with the on-coming balls; and a teleport beam that shoots your ball over to the other side of the screen. There are other objects that you will encounter along the way, but I don’t want to spoil any surprises.

Needless to say, Ballix requires that you have good problem-solving skills to make sure you keep all of the colored balls moving to their rightful destinations. At the same time, you need to have quick fingers, so you can move a switch, close a door, and twist the turn table (not necessarily in that order, but you get the idea) as more balls cascade from top to bottom. The game includes a decent help section, so that you can see what all of the different gizmos within the game will do.

Ballix is super smooth on Nokia’s touch-enabled devices. I’ve been playing it on my Nokia N97 mini, and the responsiveness of the game is precise and quick. There is also a basic soundtrack in the game that you can turn on/off from the game’s main menu – I tend to play with the sound off, but only because the music has this slight panic-inducing quality to it that makes it harder for me to concentrate (I’m guessing that was intentional).

After completing a level successfully, the game does reward you with statistics for accuracy, bonus points, and encouraging words – as well as that shiny bar that simply says “Next Level” which both invites you and dares you to move on.

Additionally, you can see how you’ve done on any completed levels, with stats for accuracy by percentage, and total score per level. As you can see, I have some work to do back on level 6.

Now, in fairness, I have not conquered this game yet – I’ve managed to get to level 10, and I consider that something of a personal accomplishment. Although, the game does have 42 levels! But you see, I need to make it there, because the game’s publishers promise that “The Secret of the Universe” awaits on level 42. (I love their sense of humor at PlayMobility.) I can hardly wait to find out the answer – and hey, if you know, don’t spoil it for the rest of us!

Ballix is available for $2.99 (USD) in Ovi Store, and it is compatible for Nokia’s S60 5th Edition devices.