Dots & Co. tweaks the Dots games by adding a friendly companion

Dots & Co., the follow-up to the popular puzzle games Dots and Two Dots, launched on iOS and Android earlier this week.

If reading about the new game isn’t enough for you, you can watch me try it out in the video above.

In many ways, Dots & Co. should feel pretty familiar to fans of the previous games. Your goal is to clear as many dots as you can by connecting dots of the same color. The cute art style and music are pretty similar, too.

But developer Playdots has changed the gameplay in a few key ways. The biggest difference is the addition of a companion who hovers above the board. You power them up by clearing special dots; once they’re fully powered, they’ll help you out, for example, by clearing away all the dots of a certain color.

My initial impression is that this preserves the things that work about the Dots formula without feeling like a complete retread. But, uh, excuse me while I go play for a few more hours, just to be sure.