A unique storybook setting and some fittingly new-age music highlight this puzzle game in which you must quickly match shapes by placing multicolored crystal pieces onto the playing field. Pieces come in different shapes and sizes and may be rotated to fit where you need them to. The basic unit is a little blue arrowhead shape. Larger pieces let you clear more of the puzzle at a time, but it's tougher to find the perfect fit for them, and they take up more room in your queue of pieces. If you hesitate for too long without clearing your queue, you lose the level.
Fortunately, some power-ups occasionally show up to help you, such as when you're looking to clear the last few pieces of a puzzle. A drag-and-drop interface makes all this easy to do, but as the puzzles grow more complex, requiring you to break through multiple layers, Charm Tale becomes quite challenging. Some added depth is there, since you can occasionally throw out pieces you don't want and may also assemble magical items that give you permanent bonuses. Charm Tale looks deceptively simple and starts off fairly slow, but its fast-paced shape-matching puzzles can be entertaining.
