In this hectic world we live in, many times work and appointments must come before the fun and joys in our lives, including that of getting to play videogames whenever we want. Gone are the days when we could fire up a game of our choice and spend hours toiling away – now we seem to game in stolen moments here and there. With that in mind, perhaps it is no wonder that casual games have become such a popular gaming choice (especially with women who make up the vast majority of casual game players), as casual games allow us to either jump in and get those quick fixes of gaming bliss or either play them for as long as we want when we do have the time. In honor of the casual game, we'll be bringing you a new Casual Game of the Week every Monday to help you find that fix you might be needing in your life, and this week we have: Sveerz.

When you were a child (or if you are one now) do you remember playing the game Simon? Simon was the light up game with four colors (red, blue, green, and yellow) where it would tell you what color to press, and you'd have to mimic it like some parrot performing for its master. The longer you went accurately hitting the memory game in the right order, the longer and longer the chain became and the better your mind had to be. Heck, you probably learned to perform a little song ditty in your head to help remember the combos. Well if you miss the good old days of Simon, prepare for the next reincarnation – Sveerz.

Sveerz plays like a mixture of Simon meets a bubble popping matching game, where the only time you lose is if the balls in play (Sveerz) go up beyond the game board. Positioned along side the board are four colored faces, representing the colors red, blue, green and yellow. These giant face overlords are the ones giving you orders, as they will shoutout the color they represent, indicating what colors you'll need to press and in what order. So if you get a shout of red followed then by a blue and yellow, you'll have to look at the balls on your board, and click on a red, blue and yellow in that order. If you click on them in the right order, the balls pop. If you don't memorize the order correctly, no balls will pop, and more will fall from the sky (to be fair though, balls are slowly falling from the top anyways). You'll successfully clear a level when you've popped the requisite amount of balls for that level, or you eliminate all the balls from play at one time.

There are several ways the game gets harder. First up, and the most obvious, though in the beginning you only start with one color remembrances, each success will net you longer combos, until you either reach the maximum chain combo and then go back to the beginning, or screw up and pop a ball out of order. Another way the game gets harder is they'll place metallic, stationary balls in play, which do nothing but clog up the game board, making it so balls won't fall all the way to the bottom, and instead stack up closer to the top of the level so you have a chance of losing quicker. However, you do have several helpers, such as bombs which will destroy other balls and even the metallic blockers, and rainbow colored balls that will act as any color, should you forget what the next color in the combo chain was.

Though you are only popping one ball at a time for each color shouted out, there are chances for combos. If three of the same ball color end up touching each other in a left to right row or diagonally, then all three of them will disappear at once. If all the balls you click in the combo are attached to each other, you'll get a line of electricity surround them, which will net you even more points. These are all the fundamentals of the Arcade mode, but one of the four modes available for play.

So we've mentioned the gameplay of the Arcade mode, but what of the other three? The second mode up is Memory, which is pretty much like the Arcade mode, but the memory chains you must remember are longer and more complex. The Puzzle mode has none of the memorization of the other gameplay modes, and instead all you have to do is be methodical and pop one ball at a time, trying to eliminate all the balls you need before they go over the board. The Puzzle mode seems quite easy at first, but then you realize that if you aren't popping balls to play them so they'll make combos and eliminate each other without your help, you'll quickly find yourself on the losing end of the game. The fourth mode is a great one, which is the Rhythm mode. Rhythm mode has the same win and lose mechanics of the other modes, but the difference here is that beyond just having to click on the colored balls in the order they are called out (or in the case of this game flashed) you also have to do them in rhythm with the music like the game did. So, after hearing the colors come out and getting the beat they dropped on, you then have to click the same colors in the same order, and hit the same beat too. Additional balls drop from the sky depending on how off the beat and mimicry you were, so if you only hit like a 15% beat, you might find all four balls dropping. However, if you hit the beat 100% then no additional balls will come down. The Rhythm mode really gets your head bobbing and mind counting to the beat, and with levels having different music playing and therefore different beats, things are always changing up.

The graphics are pretty good, but nothing amazing. The Sveerz themselves look the best, what with their giant, cartoon eyes and helpless smirks. The cutscene like images were also quite cute and funny, with some replicating famous images or people, like one that has a Sveerz ball dressed like Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and one ball standing in front of a line of tanks, like that one iconic image from history's past.

With a game so built around sound and music, you'd expect the game to feature it in droves, and thankfully it is good and works well for the game. The sound of balls popping, electricity sizzling, bombs bursting, and the colors being called out all do great (though sometimes it feels like it is hard to hear the colors called out with the music playing). The music, far from groundbreaking or symphonic, still was really grooving, and it all had a nice beat that set the mood really well for the game.

With nicely done graphics and sound, plus a musical based Simon gameplay that I've never seen in a puzzle game before, Sveerz does a lot of things well and is a game that is worth your time to checkout. Unlike many puzzle games that only seem to be a way to spend some time, Sveerz actually looks as if it could help train your brain and help your memorization skills as well, thanks to the gameplay that is at its core. So if you are looking for some fun or a way to improve your memory, give Sveerz a shot and get grooving to the ball popping.

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