Meteos

Meteos (メテオス, Meteosu) is a 2005 action puzzle video game developed by Q Entertainment and published by Nintendo and Bandai for the Nintendo DS portable gaming system. The name of the game comes from the English word meteor, transliterated to "meteo". Meteos was released in Japan on March 10, 2005, in North American on June 27, 2005, in Europe on September 23, 2005 and in Australia on November 24, 2005.

Meteos was very well received upon its release. The game is often compared to Lumines, a game for PlayStation Portable by the same developer, which also features falling blocks. In general, Meteos relies heavily on speed and reflexes, while Lumines relies heavily on rhythm and concentration.

Gameplay

Most of the action takes place at the bottom screen of the DS unit (the section referred to as the atmosphere). Blocks ("Meteos") fall down from the top of the screen and start to form stacks. The player can move blocks up and down in a stack using the stylus, or alternatively by using the control pad and A button. The player aims to line up three or more matching blocks. When a horizontal or vertical row of at least three blocks is formed, the row of blocks will ignite and turn into a kind of tiny rocket engine. The rocket then pushes the blocks above it towards the top of the screen. To lift a large amount of blocks, additional rows of blocks must be formed in a quick succession (secondary ignition). Also, if an ignited pile of blocks falls back down and, in doing so, causes another set of blocks to ignite, the pile will boost back up again, wider than before. This is called a step jump.