It’s been a busy 24 hours in the App Store. A number of anticipated releases have been released into the app store including Fishing Cactus’ maze / puzzle game Equilibrio [App Store].
The $3.99 title is a gravity-based game in which your job is get your ball to the end goal by navigating ramps, trampolines, spikes, and more. While the premise of the game may seem familiar, the game incorporates a number of twists to keep it interesting.
There are 5 types of balls each with different properties and gameplay characteristics. These include rubber, glass, steel, stone and paper. Levels include obstacles such as spikes and acid that destroy the balls on contact. Tilting your iPhone will allow you to build up momentum to jump obstacles and avoid danger. Part of the challenge, however, is also avoiding shattering your ball, so proper control becomes a major issue and you can’t just speed through each level.
The game offers 3 play modes including Conquest, Challenge and Random Level challenge.
- Conquest – complete all levels in sequence, though you can skip levels to avoid frustration
- Challenge – Play 5 of the levels with specific rules (within a time limit, don’t lose more than 2 lives, play against a ghost ball)
- Random – a level is give to you at random
This gameplay video shows some of the early levels:
[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]
The challenge mode with its unique level goals offers you longer-term replayability in quick 5-level sessions. Individual levels, unfortunately, have a rather poor high score system. As it stands, it’s very hard to tell which levels you could improve on. While individual scores are kept for each level, they are relatively hard to access.
Overall, the game is very well produced and is easily one of the better “tilt/ball" control games in the App Store. Like all of those games, however, there is a distinct level of frustration that can accompany them. Equilibrio, however, does offer level skips and “solution" replays to allow you to bypass being completely stuck at any stage of the game.
App Store Link: Equilibrio, $3.99.
