I am a huge fan of poker.  And I love color matching games.  This strikes me as an opportunity which is ripe for a chocolate in my peanut butter moment.  Fortunately, I don’t have to speculate about what the outcome of that moment might be.  My good friends at Birdsoft have already done that work for me.  Yes, this is the same Birdsoft which gave us the much acclaimed Extreme Agenda for Windows Mobile.  Hit the jump and we can take a closer look at what happens when poker meets Bejeweled.

OK.  So, how does this work?  Well, we’ll start with the grid of 48 squares (6×8).  This means you are not quite playing with a full deck of 52 cards…but close enough.  The cards are dealt out on the grid.  Each card is assigned a suit (blue diamonds, red hearts, green clovers, and black spades) and a value (2-10, J, Q, K, A).  Now, here is where the fun comes in.  You need to remove the cards by making poker hands.

The cool twist about Poker Stacks is that the matching cards do not necessarily need to be next to each other in order to be removed from the table.  Instead, your goal is to build poker hands.  Find a poker hand, and highlight it.  The scoring cards will be removed, leaving the rest of the hand on the table.  So, for example, if you made a five card hand of A, 2, 8, 3, A; then the two A would be removed, leaving the other three cards on the table.  The only problem here was that a lot of people may not be familiar with the various hands of poker.  It would be nice if the game had included a cheat sheet of the available poker hands.

Of course, once you start removing cards, things get really interesting as each column starts to show the peaks and valleys of the game.  These irregularities and voids can make it difficult to make the necessary matches.  Fortunately, you can slide cards through the empty spaces or swap them with a neighbor.  It took me a while to figure this all out, though.  There is an instruction screen, but this is a game which would really benefit from a tutorial. 

Now, all you have to do is lower all six columns below the line and you will advance to the next level.   Watch out though, each level will raise the stakes, requiring a better minimum hand in order to remove any cards.  Oh and don’t forget about that timer on the bottom keeping you honest.  Run out of time and your game will end.

The graphics in the game were well drawn and animated.  To be honest, I went back and forth on whether the colored tiles worked for me, or if they should have been replaced with a more card-like image.  In the end, though, I think the colors work for two reasons.  First, more realistic cards would make it more difficult to distinguish between the different colors.  The use of colored tiles really highlighted the color matching focus of the game.  I also liked the decision to go with the colored tiles because it attracts both poker lovers and casual gamers alike.  a more realistic card face could have put too much stress on the poker side of the game, potentially scaring off more casual players. 

This is a really original game, which did a great job of mixing the rules of poker with the fun of a color matching game.  Plus, the fact that a match does not necessarily need to be adjoining adds an entirely new element to the game, which makes it stand apart from most color matching games.  Birdsoft built its reputation on creative programs which stand out from the crowd.  Extreme Agenda, for example, added significant functionality to the standard PIM by including a secure information wallet as well.  Poker Stacks lives up to this reputation…in spades.

What I Liked:

• Extremely original gameplay
• Very nice graphics and animation
• Fantastic marriage between color matching and poker

What Needs Improvement: 

• A better tutorial would be nice
• Can’t access instructions while in the middle of a game
• Include a poker hand cheat sheet

Developer: Birdsoft

Price: $1.99

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