Game: Deflex
Price: $1.99/£1.49
Size: 8.9MB
Buy it now from the iTunes store:US/UK
Thanks to the quick turnarounds and low price points of the App Store, longtime game designer Jeff Minter – the man responsible for the hugely divisive Space Giraffe on Xbox Live Arcade – has been able to rapidly prototype and release his bizarre and almost psychedelic retro-stylized game ideas of late. Case in point: Deflex is the third such game to come from Minter's Llamasoft studio this year, following the sharp Minotaur Rescue and the less effective Minotron: 2112. Like its predecessors, Deflex is cheap, universally playable, and hugely visually distinctive. And it may be his best iOS experiment to date.
It's sort of amazing how his iOS games can look and feel so much like familiar old-school releases, yet unique elements make them play unlike anything that came before. Deflex gives you paddles and a ball to work with, but this isn't Breakout or Pong; the two buttons give you differently angled paddles that can be placed anywhere to change the trajectory of the moving ball by 90 degrees. You'll drop them all over the screen to guide the ball through mazes and around hazards to collect all the icons in each stage, but once placed, the paddles don't disappear – instead, they become fresh obstacles to consider as the ball bounces from point to point, and they even change direction with each passing hit.
As with Minotaur Rescue and Minotron: 2112, the fuzzy visual look serves to muddle the gameplay experience to minor extent, but somehow remains a welcomed effect; it signals that you're playing a strange, trippy little beast, in case the large icons of fruit, animals, and common household items didn't tip you off. Furthermore, each icon collected emits a poignant piano note, turning each level into a strange personal symphony of lights and sounds. Like Minter's previous releases, Deflex isn't a surefire recommendation to players of all stripes; you'll need to appreciate (or at least tolerate) the auteur's touch to really love the experience. But Deflex also comes across as a well-designed game that we'd enjoy even without all the wacky aesthetic flourishes, which makes it a pretty easy sell at just two bucks.
Game: Sissy's Magical Ponycorn Adventure
Price: $2.99/£1.99
Size: 23.7MB
Buy it now from the iTunes store:US/UK
Sissy's magic what, now? Based on the title alone, you might think this whimsical release is actually a children's storybook – which isn't too far from the truth, but in a very different kind of way that you might expect. Instead of being a point-and-tap adventure aimed at a younger audience, this delightful little nugget was actually conceived by a five-year-old girl named Cassie, thanks in large part to her game developer dad. With her oddball ideas and his game design prowess in tow, the pair stormed the recent Toronto Game Jam indie event and created the LINK [http://ponycorns.com/game.html] charming Flash game, which was quickly ported to iPad; and both are generating funds to send the young gaming maestro to college someday.
Sissy's Magical Ponycorn Adventure is neither difficult nor complicated; the entire game can be completed in about five minutes' time and anyone with even a passing knowledge of adventure games can breeze through it with only a handful of taps. The crayon-colored lead character – voiced by Cassie herself, using a variety of silly quips (has she actually seen Good Will Hunting?) – can travel through rainbows to a few different locations, most of which hold ponycorns (that's pony + unicorn) that must be rescued from the likes of a dinosaur and an evil, floating lemon. While some of the events in the game happen simply by tapping a character, other tasks require you to find an item in one scene and use it to trigger something elsewhere. Again, it's not rocket science – but the end result is fascinating and strangely mesmerizing.
It's tough to believe that someone could play Sissy's Magical Ponycorn Adventure and not have their pants charmed off by the kid-made characters and sets. Even Ron Gilbert, creator of legendary point-and-click adventure The Secret of Monkey Island, tweeted that it's the "best point-n-click adventure I've played in a long time." Look, we get it: value is important to many players, and the prospect of spending three bucks on a lightly interactive, five-minute adventure game probably seems like a waste of time and money. But if you can shed that outer layer of cynicism for a moment and just open yourself up to something that's fresh and silly and patently ridiculous, this goofy little release might just warm your heart. Or maybe you'll just despise us for making you drop three bones on some frilly pony game. Either way, Cassie will be eating a slice of college cafeteria pizza on your dime in 13-or-so years. (Sucker.)
July 24, 2011
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