Spirit ($0.99) by Marco Mazzoli is a retro arcade geometry themed game where you draw the path of your ship to create warp holes. The game gives you a grid background with all types of varying enemies that you need to surround to create a warp hole. When you move your ship a trail emits, and you need to connect to the trail to create a warp hole.
There are two gameplay modes with normal and extreme with extreme throwing you in the heavy action firm the get go. OpenFeint is included for online high scores. Despite having only two gameplay modes, the enemy types are randomly generated so no game plays the same.
Spirit is a fun little game that doesn’t have much depth, but is definitely unique. You direct your ship by drawing on screen in quick movements to reach the end of the tail. The problem is that though it’s unique its much more frustrating then many other control mechanics.
As you’re moving your ship with your fingertip you can see it with the offset scheme, but the problem is that the rest of your finger blocks a majority of the screen. Many times on your path you run into an enemy as you’re trying to complete the warp hole. On top of that you have to draw the circles so quick that you lose all sense of precision, and you feel like you’re not in control as much as you need to succeed.
The game is too frustrating and shallow to be recommended even for $1 with so many better purchases for that $1. It’s worth considering if you like unique mechanics that you think you can deal with, and the retro arcade theme.
LookieLookie ($0.99) by jutogames is a simple little unknown game that is pretty much a game of find the matches. Orbs fall in from the top and bounce around with physics simulation. Once at rest you try to find a match whether it’s numbers or images with each level having a certain number of matches possible.
As you progress there are more orbs to look through to pick out the matches. Each level has a time limit, and based on time left you earn points. There are local scores, but nothing online though the game isn’t really about scores. The game is simplistic with nothing really remarkable about it. You just expect more from any game, and it just has a gameplay mechanic that is too simple.
It’s fun one time through, but then you probably will never play it again. It’s nicely designed, and matching the hand drawn images under quick time constraints is quite fun. For $1 there are many better options in the App Store, but this is a fun little game, that just doesn’t do anything special, and has such a low replay factor.
