Mean Girls High School Showdown 0.2009.102.1

Let's get real here. How many of us think high school was a fun time in our lives that ran smoothly? Ok, not counting the popular kids. Mean Girls brings back everything from high school, from cliques, teachers, sports and dull subjects to love, backstabbing, friendship, frenemies and enemies, rolled into a Puzzle Quest-style match-3 game with a 'tude.
Yes, the game and its characters hail from the movie Mean Girls. Like the movie, you’re the new girl in school who moved from Africa – just like the Cady who was played by Lindsay Lohan in the film – who has never experienced school because she received home-schooling. The first person you meet is Janis who asks you to become a double agent and join the Plastics as a spy. She gives you quests to complete, which lead to showdowns. If you haven’t seen the movie, it won’t affect understanding the game.



You'll pick one of four avatars – artsy, nerdy, sexy, and broody. Artsy looks like a painter complete with a beret. Nerdy looks shy and comes with glasses and books for accessories. Sexy has an awkward and annoying pose that looks like she’s walking on a tight wire. Broody looks like she keeps to herself, but she’s a decent dresser.

Next come the attributes. Much like a Dungeons and Dragons game, you have 15 points to distribute toward charisma, intelligence, endurance, luck and strength. Whatever points you assign to each skill will boost your skill in the showdown. Then you pick one bonus skill that you use during the showdown such as Butter Up, which gives your opponent one heart worth of loyalty.

The match-3 grid contains six shapes sorted into two groups: matches that directly affect your opponent, and matches that allow you to use bonus skills. Only hearts and whips can directly damage your opponent: fill the opponent’s heart meter and you win the battle and remain a nice girl. You can also use whips to knock down the stamina meter, but winning the battle with whips adds to your meanness. It’s up to you whether you want to be an angel or a devil, and what you choose will affect the game's ending. However, sometimes you must make a nasty move because in high school it’s kill or be killed.

You can make matches of four or more to get another turn. Two bonus tiles appear on the grid on occasion. One is the Wild tile to be anything you need. The other is a chameleon that turns into whatever tile it lands on. You don’t have control over chameleon. Also, some showdowns have a timer, but the showdown never comes close to running out of time.