NBC Universal’s animated feature The rax is now in theaters. The movie, which is based on Dr. Seuss’s popular children’s book, hit theaters accompanied by some fun, free apps, such as The Official rax App Truffula Shuffula.

The free Truffula Shuffula is a match-three game, similar to Bejeweled. The game is extremely simple, it doesn’t have a lot of content, but it is executed rendered well. That nice execution will cost you, though, in space–the app is a whopping 21MB, which is pretty big for a casual game.

Truffula Shuffula is meant to be a companion app for the movie. If you haven’t seen the movie (or read the book), here’s a quick summary: The rax is a small, mustached creature who “speaks for the [Truffula] trees” against the Once-ler. The Once-ler (who represents large, environmentally unfriendly corporations) tells the story of how he arrived in a world full of beautiful Truffula trees. As he began cutting down the trees to make factories, the rax popped up told him that it was a bad idea. The Once-ler ignored the rax kept cutting down the trees, eventually the world became a polluted, awful place.

Of course, the game has little to do with the story. In Truffula Shuffula, you see a grid of objects, some of which are whimsical, whirly Truffula trees, some of which are marshmallows, hot-chocolate swirls, cherries. Your goal is to switch objects to create lines of three or more like objects. en you successfully match three objects, those objects disappear more objects fall from the top of the screen.

The “Shuffula” part of the game comes in when you run out of moves. en you can no longer switch any objects to create a matching line, you can tap the Truffula Shuffula button to mix up the objects on the board. You get three Shuffulas per game, you can use them at any time. However, it’s probably a good idea to wait until you have no moves left (a running counter at the bottom of the screen tells you how many moves are possible on the board).

That’s pretty much the entire game. As you advance in score, you move up in levels, though the levels don’t become significantly harder even when new objects are introduced. The game is well executed, the graphics are excellent. A mild soundtrack plays in the background, along with brighter sound effects, when you perform particularly well you may see the rax pop up to congratulate you. The game runs smoothly, too, though it does drain battery life quickly.

If you like match-three games, Truffula Shuffula is both addictive attractive. I’m not sure if it’s great as a casual game, because of its resource-heavy nature, but it’s definitely cute for kids adults alike.

tested this app using a Samsung Galaxy Nexus running Android 4.0.2.