Last week at Macworld 2011, I met up with the folks from Chillingo to check out an upcoming iPad game that they’re tentatively calling Play Kalei. It’s an extremely casual title, but the idea for the gameplay is really clever and unique. After trying out their work-in-progress version of the game, it’s actually quite a lot of fun as well.
The basic idea in Play Kalei is that you’re presented with a high quality photograph and a random point of the picture is highlighted in a circular window in the upper corner of the screen. The catch is that the window highlighting the point in the photograph is shown as if you’re looking at it through a kaleidoscope, and you must find that particular point by matching the kaleidoscope view in a second window by sliding your finger around the screen.
Ok, it’s a completely hard idea to explain, but this video shows how the gameplay works in Play Kalei:
While the core mechanic is pretty casual, there’s a nice 3 star grading system that ties into how fast you’re able to complete each picture, which adds a more compelling dynamic to the gameplay. You will also be able to import and use any of your own photographs to play the game, and coupled with the randomized nature of how it chooses points in the picture there should be a decent amount of replay value on offer.
Play Kalei is in the polishing stages and still may undergo a name change, but should be hitting the App Store within the next couple of months and we’ll take another look at the game when it’s available.
