Hothead Games’ latest game to run on iOS devices is a rather interesting one, from a gameplay standpoint. Normally one would expect the adoption of the Tetris falling block gameplay with match-3 elements to be pretty straightfoward, if not, predictable, but what happens if all the action takes place in the center of a petri dish instead of the bottom of the screen, and the tetriminos are replaced with colourful cells? You’ll get one heck of a game in the form of Cell Bound.


Players spin the dish around to make sure that the incoming cells are joined together in same colour groups; , join 5 of them together and they explode (ala Tetris), making room for more cells to come in. In Burst Mode, which is one of three game modes that Cell Bound offers, there is a penalty if cells of a different colour are joined together, making the more recent cell becoming inert (turning black in colour) and impossible to get rid off.

In all three game modes, players cannot allow the cells to accumulate over a certain threshold, which is the edge of the petri dish, otherwise is game over. In addition to the boundary,  Timer Mode has the player racing against the clock as well, with every 1,200 points scored resulting in an additional second gained.

Unlike Tetris which can be quite middling, Cell Bound is actually one tough game to play as the level of challenge ramps up really quickly. The game is played with one thumb only and this adds to the frantic, if not crazy, attempt to keep up with the rate of incoming cells and spinning the petri dish around. In other words, if you are looking for a challenge in a sea of casual games populating the App Store nowadays, Cell Bound is a definite standout to be picked.


To round it up, the game comes with Game Center connectivity, bringing with it Online Leaderboards. Nine Over Ten 9/10 rates Cell Bound at a 4.5 over 5 for being such an excellent/challenging game. GREAT STUFF! By the way, I think the option to choose colour presets for the cell colours was an inspired choice for people like me (I’ve failed a colour blind test before), so, thanks 🙂

Cell Bound is available on the App Store for just USD 0.99, so check it out over here: https://itunes.apple.com/my/app/cell-bound/id436300877?mt=8. A review code was provided to Nine Over Ten 9/10 for the purpose of this review.