See The Light: A twist on Puzzle Games – Android Game Review

App Name: See The Light by The Animal Farm Creations

Description: A puzzle game set in deep space, See the Light challenges you to manipulate light using mirrors, lenses, energizers, absorbers, and other tools to solve 80 levels. See if you can overcome increasingly tricky puzzles while unlocking every award!

How it works: Controls simply involve dragging items from a column on the right hand on the screen, placing them on the screen to change the direction of light. Majority of the time, you as the player will have to manipulate the way these items send the direction of light, to do this tap the item after it’s been placed to rotate.  After placing the item and rotating (if needed), you’ll tap a green check mark to confirm your changes and placement of the item. Once this is done players cannot move or even rotate the item again unless you have a Rotator. However if you haven’t confirmed the changes, simply tap anywhere on the screen and the item will be removed from the screen and added back into your resources. All of this is accomplished with nine different items; however only certain items are available to the player in each level and will create all sorts of challenges. A few of these Items are mirrors, lenses, disco balls and rotators.

Opinion: See The Light is a perfect example of how to challenge player’s to use their resources wisely in order to complete each level. I feel that this was executed perfectly and it engages players in a way that other Android games haven’t. It really draws the player in and keeps them playing for hours. On my down time at work I’d launch the game and found myself playing it without noticing how much time has passed until I looked at the clock two hours later. What was even more impressive was the developers went out of their way to create an awards system.  Awards are unlocked by completing certain tasks, failing to do something etc. This really pushed myself and will certainly push gamers to keep playing in order to see what will be unlocked next. In fact I handed my phone to one of my friends and asked them to play it to get their reaction and thoughts. Simply put they really enjoyed it and found themselves quite stumped occasionally. But it was the awards system that kept them going and wanting them to complete the puzzle. While everything about this game is great, from simple game play to resource management and even awards there are some flaws.

I loved the fact that the graphics were simple, but eventually staring at the same background from level to level got tiresome.  The size of the items were a bit too small as well, not being able to see the item under my thumb or finger made it hard to see where the item was placed. It appears the developer tried to remedy this by providing guide markers and it did help but only up to a certain extent. I found that the game doesn’t take advantage of larger displays either. On my Motorola Droid a quarter of an inch of the right hand screen was not being used and was just black. Also if you own a phone with a sliding keyboard (like I do) there’s a bug where if a player slides the screen up the game restarts back to the developer splash screen, the same can be said when closing the keyboard. The same exact thing happens when unlocking the phone. It also tries to play the audio when the phone is locked and asleep. With it, it does suffer from the sound skipping when unlocking the phone occasionally but quickly comes out of it. Maybe this is just a particular issue with the Motorola Droid but it sure isn’t a good sign. And finally if you want to go back to the main menu after choosing “New Game” you can’t. Pressing the back button on your phone will results in exiting the game. However the other menu options have a back button built in at the bottom of the screen. I’m not quite sure why the developers made that design choice, but it was a minor inconvenience. Despite these flaws, the game is very impressive and I highly recommend it.

Ratings :

• Speed (5/5) –   The app has little to no lag. Only time I ever noticed it is when I unlocked the phone.
• Features (3/5) – Being able to go back and replay a level, unlock awards are bonuses. However the option to turn off the audio would have been nice.
• Theme (4/5) – The game is set in the future and in space. Nothing fancy and definitely fits the game well.
  Overall (5/5) – I don’t think I’ve seen a puzzle game like this in a while and from what I can tell there is no puzzle game like this out on the Android Market.

Pro:

• Simple Controls
• Graphics and Audio are Simple
• Requires players to think and use Resources appropriately
• Provides hours of gaming
• Awards System

Cons:

• Items are a bit too small
• Does not take advantage of larger displays
• App restarts on unlocking phone, opening/closing keyboard
• 16mb Download and Install

Conclusion:

This game is a must download if you are into puzzle games. It consists of 80 Levels and part of me wonders if 40 would have been enough. But then I realized, it’s the 80 Levels that contribute to the hours of gaming. Sure it’s 16mb in size, suffers from some minor bugs and the items are too small if you have big hands. But the simple controls, graphics, thinking outside of the box to solve each level, awards system and 80 Levels of non-stop fun certainly overshadow the bugs. After reviewing this game for the past week I can confidently say download this game. The game is available for $2.00 in the Android Marketplace. If you are unsure about the purchase, check out the free version to get a taste of this game.

Update: The Game is on Sale till Friday July 4th for only $0.99