$2.994.5 starsReviews

‘Lines the Game’ Review – Dot You Forget About Me

TouchArcade Rating:

Take a look at the screenshots for Lines the Game (Free). Go ahead, I’ll wait. Pretty lame, right? I mean, it’s a bunch of empty, basic shapes on a white background. I’ve seen sweaters that looked more fun to play. Heck, even the name is painfully uninspired. “Lines”, huh? Oh, and it’s a “Game”? You don’t say. How about I pour myself a glass of warm water and prepare a big ol’ bowl of lettuce, ‘cause “Lines the Game” is here and we need to celebrate this. Well, the joke’s on me (as is often the case), because Gamious’ new game is actually shockingly great. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s my favorite puzzle game at the moment. It’s brilliant, satisfying, supremely relaxing, and–to borrow an amusingly awkward phrase from the literary world–unputdownable. So… what is it?

I’m not sure that describing the game is going to be any more enticing than the screenshots are, but I’ll do my best. Each level presents you with a simple picture made up of–you guessed it–lines. There are various colored dots on these lines, and your job is to manipulate the dots (or, later, the lines themselves) to make sure your color covers more of the picture than the other colors do.

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The first mode you’ll play is called “Point” (they really have a way with words, don’t they?). You’re tasked with placing a dot (or a series of dots) anywhere along the lines of the image, and when you’re finished a sort of ‘race’ starts between the different colors. Each dot expands outward along the lines at the same pace, and eventually all of the lines are filled in. Your color is always indicated at the edges of the screen, so as long as there’s more of that color than any other, you’ll have won. The trick is choosing where to place your dot (or dots), and there’s a surprising amount of strategy there. Should you place a dot at an intersection so your color can branch out in more directions? Or should you stick a dot next to an enemy dot to cut it off early? The layout of dots on each picture is completely random each time you play it, too, so one strategy may not work the next time on the exact same puzzle.

Don’t let all that talk about “strategy” scare you off, though. The game’s actually pretty easy all the way through, and each puzzle will probably only take a few seconds to complete. And don’t let that scare you off, either. Think of it more like Zen Bound ($2.99) or Blueprint 3D ($0.99): scratching your head’s not really the point. The point is to just sit on your couch with an iPad and relax while a pleasant little puzzle game gently massages your frontal lobes for a few minutes. Or hours.

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“Hours?!” I hear you shouting into whatever screen is aimed at your face-parts. Yes, despite how simple and quick each puzzle is, I often found myself playing for surprisingly long sessions. This is due, in part, to the other modes the game offers. Aside from “Point”, there’s also “Eraser” (where you subtract dots instead of adding them), “Rope” (where you join sections of lines together), “Knife” (where you add gaps to keep colors from spreading), and “Mix” (where you use different combinations of all the previous abilities). Each mode you unlock is more fun than the last, and changes up the gameplay in pretty brilliant ways. My favorite, at the moment, is Knife.

Of course, when you start the game, only the “Point” mode is unlocked. In order to gain access to the others, you need to complete the first 20 puzzles. And once you’ve unlocked every mode and completed all 250 puzzles, you can go back and start earning medals on all of them (though you can do that from the beginning, if you want). You earn a bronze medal for completing a puzzle three times in a row, silver for five, and gold for ten. Unfortunately, even though the dot placement is random each time, it’s still kind of a drag to have to do the same thing ten times in a row without failing. Especially since you can be given seemingly impossible puzzles every once in a while (also due to the random nature of the dot placement). It doesn’t happen often, but it happens often enough that I have basically no desire to complete all 250 ten times in a row. Even if you managed to do them all perfectly without ever failing, that would still take you 2,500 plays. I really like the game and all, but c’mon–we’re still talking about just lines and dots here.

It may seem like I’ve given Lines the Game a lot of crap for how simplistic it seems on the surface, but don’t take that too seriously. I actually love the minimalist, no-frills nature of the visuals and gameplay, and hope it doesn’t scare too many people away (like it almost did for me). Once you dive in and play a few levels, there’s a good chance you’ll be hooked. Especially if you start unlocking the other modes, which do an outstanding job of mixing up the gameplay and keeping things fresh. Plus, if you ever run out of stuff to do (which you won’t), there are even Daily Challenges to try. I do wish the medal requirements were relaxed a little bit, and some kind of puzzle editor would be the bee’s knees, but even without that stuff the game is still really great. If you’re at all into puzzle games that are more interested in soothing you than hurting your brain, I think you’ve found your new addiction.

  • Lines the Game

    **WINNER Best Casual Entertainment Game - Dutch Game Awards ** **Every level CAN be won!** But sometimes the solution is…
    TA Rating:
    Free
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