DeNA continues their strange new pattern of releasing iOS versions of PC indie games under new names with Yet It Moves ($2.99), probably the most famous of the batch so far. Originally titled And Yet It Moves, it was first released on PC back in 2009 before making its way to WiiWare, of all places, in 2010. It received a fair bit of praise back then for its clever take on platforming and unique presentation. Here in 2015, it’s not quite as unusual as it once was, but its strong level designs and good pacing make it a game still well-worth checking out.

As near as I can tell, there’s no story or context for the game. It’s a side-scrolling platformer that has you controlling a sketchy-looking guy who looks like he wandered out of an A-ha video. You need to make your way through the oddly-designed levels to reach the piece of paper you were apparently cut from. I don’t know, friends. You have a relatively small set of tools at your disposal. You can move left or right and jump, like any decent platformer character. Those skills won’t get you terribly far before you have to make use of the game’s central mechanic, however. Rather than directly navigating the environment, you have to move the environment around your character to make progress. At any time, you can rotate the world in either direction, with gravity behaving appropriately once you stop moving things. Your character is quite susceptible to falling damage, though, so you have to be very careful to pay attention to his momentum and how long his drops are. You’ll also need to make sure nothing squashes you from above or pinches you between it and a hard place.

While there are only 17 main levels and a few extra bonus levels to the game, they’re quite large and can take some time to work your way through. There are frequent checkpoints scattered along the way that you instantly respawn at when you die. They’re spaced apart well enough that death isn’t entirely meaningless, but close enough that if you have to stop playing and do something else, you won’t have to repeat much. The checkpoints also helpfully point out the direction you need to go in next, a vital bit of advice given how complicated some of the level designs are. You’ll have to use your world rotating abilities to solve a few puzzles now and then, but they’re almost all a variation on moving one object to another object to open the way forward. The trick, of course, is that you need to mind where your character is moving in all of this. These puzzles start to wear a little bit thin by the end of the game, but they provide a nice break from simply moving your character from point A to point B.

Most of the fun in the game happens outside of those puzzles, however. The game’s use of physics and momentum can make for some crazy situations and equally outrageous last-minute saves. Once you really get the hang of things, you’ll be zooming around obstacles in impossible ways like some sort of wild super hero. The difficulty curve is so smooth that you might not even notice your steadily-building skills unless you actually stop and think about it. It manages all of this nearly wordlessly, an impressive and sadly rare quality these days. The game also has the courtesy to step off the stage just when it’s starting to get a bit tiresome. The game was criticized for its brevity in its previous forms, but I think it’s just about right for what it has to offer. You’ll get at least a few hours of fun out of Yet It Moves, and each level feels meaningful and memorable. Without any extra gimmicks to offer, that’s certainly enough to fully explore the central mechanic.

In addition to the main levels, the game also includes the extra levels from the Wii version and a special daily run mode where you can compete against your friends on a leaderboard. They aren’t significant additions to the game, but they are certainly welcome. The only downside to the daily run levels is that they are relatively shorter, simpler, and are visually quite plain. It’s a sharp contrast to the bizarre aesthetic the rest of the game has going on. Apparently, the game was originally designed to have everything use the same pencil-drawn look of the protagonist, but the developers thought it was a little dull. They added a bit of color by using scraps of clip art, and were happy with the outcome. On the one hand, it makes the game look and feel a little bit cheap at times, but on the other hand, there’s nothing else that looks quite like it. Each level is like a living collage, with obstacles frequently taking the form of static pictures of things like gorillas or spiders. Sometimes, these images will surprise you by actually animating, but they usually don’t move any more intricately than a torn piece of a magazine would.

The controls have adapted fairly well. They can be a little fussy at times, but there’s enough of a margin for error in the game’s design that it’s rarely frustrating. Simply press down on the left or right side of the screen to move in either direction and tap again while holding a direction to jump. To rotate the world, hold down on the screen and slide up or down. You’ll sometimes find you’re rotating when you want to run or vice-versa, but it generally works well enough. At the very least, rotating pauses the action, so it won’t mess you up too badly if you were meaning to run. The character is pretty floaty and deliberate in his movements, something that normally bothers me a lot in platformers, but being able to make adjustments to the ground underneath your feet on the fly makes up for a lot. The bottom line, I suppose, is that the controls support the game’s design well enough that you wouldn’t suspect this of being a port job if you didn’t know otherwise.

While it’s a little on the short side and there isn’t a lot of replay value to it, for the price the iOS version goes for, Yet It Moves is an easy recommendation for anyone who enjoys puzzle platformers. It has a look and sound all its own, and some rock-solid level design that takes full advantage of its main gameplay mechanic. I’m not sure why DeNA is suddenly taking an interest in porting over games like Yet It Moves, but as long as they’re as good as this is, I sure hope they keep them coming.