While I was exploring Newgrounds the other day, I discovered a great game hidden amongst all the other puzzlers called “The Rise of Atlantis”.

Few tales are as legendary as the fabled sunken city of Atlantis; and the idea of a lost civilization has captured the interest of people for centuries.

The story whether you decide is true or not (not what we are here to discuss however, moving on!) has been featured many, many times in books (there have been more than 20,000 books written about the lost city in fact!) on TV and in movies and now even in a videogame!

“The Rise of Atlantis” is a match 3 tile-swapping puzzler that will have you traveling around the Mediterranean collecting all of the7 powers of Poseidon and raising the lost city of Atlantis back to the surface from its watery tomb!

Yeah I know, match 3 gameplay isn’t a new concept, and frankly one that has been done to death, in fact I was a little skeptical about it at first too.

But then I said to myself “Hang on a minute now, it looks professional, well made and polished and it is nice to see a mainstream game featured on NG. ”

Now, now don’t get me wrong or anything I love playing the small indie games just as much as the rest of ya, all I ‘m saying is that it is kinda refreshing sometimes to see…oh heck you know what I am saying!

SideNote: This is a demo version of the game available from Terminal Studios, you will be given a handful of levels to play free online then it will prompt you to download and buy the full version. The nice thing is even when playing the demo version; if you need to turn off the game it will save your progress so that you can continue on later.

So let’s get back to what I was thinking to myself shall we- “why don’t I just give one or two levels a try”. Well here I am on level 5 folks and let me tell you, it rocks!

Yes, to all you nay-sayers out there, it’s still the same-o, swap tiles, match 3 gameplay, but oh is it addictive! And there’s just something about tiny little, shiny helmets that appeals to me I guess.

Traveling along a map divided into small stop-offs at exotic lands like Phoenicia, Babylon, Rome, Egypt, Troy, Carthage and Greece, you'll need to assemble magical artifacts. The secret to doing that is to collect jigsaw-like puzzle pieces by making matches and causing them to fall to the bottom of the screen.

To play, just click on 2 like tiles next to each other, each has symbols on them from shields to gems, coins, and helmets to swap them, the object to create matches of 3 or more…but by now I am sure you knew that, right?

Naturally a ticking timer is placed which limits the amount of time you have within each level. But don’t let this intimidate you in the least, the timer is long and the matches will come easy and all the handy bonuses and explosive power-ups will help you from getting tanked and sinking!

Just discover it for yourself.