geoSpark was released into the app store last night. The game was first announced on our podcast by geoDefense creator David Whatley. Whatley and the husband and wife team of Imangi Studios (“gaming’s cutest couple") teamed up for this casual reaction game.
geoSpark adopts the same retro/vector graphics of geoDefense but applies them to a reaction game that works really well on the iPhone. In geoSpark your job is to eliminate “sparks" by combining them. Each spark comes in a different shape and color and you must only combine like-ones. Controls are intuitive and simply involve touching and dragging sparks into each other. If any two different sparks collide with each other, then it’s game over. This can occur by you accidentally dragging a spark into another or if they simply happen to drift into each other.
Chaining sparks by holding and dragging can be done to boost your score, but the longer you do this, your finger begins to develop a strong gravitation force accelerating the free floating sparks, increasing the likelihood of a collision. A number of included power-ups also keep the action fresh. Global high scores provide the incentive to try again, and it really becomes a balance between becoming too greedy or not when it comes to chains. Chains mean more points, but also mean a higher chance of death.
The gameplay video shows how it’s done:
I’ve had a lot of fun with geoSpark, as it really captures that self berating motivation to keep trying. Death comes as a surprise and usually as a result of a momentary lapse that pushes you to try again. Add to that a great touch mechanic, and you have a really great casual iPhone game.
App Store Link: geoSpark, $0.99
