If you go into IOTA’s Journey expecting some profound, epic adventure, you may be slightly disappointed. Yes, the game tells the story of the titular character and his first few steps into an uncomfortable new world, but IOTA is not a boy, an animal, or some sort of superhero. Instead, IOTA is a number of minimalistic, circular white blobs, and his journey is actually a pretty novel set of one-handed swipe puzzles. I’m not sure whether the pretence of a story through the game’s four chapters is satire or simply a way to make IOTA’s Journey a little more sentimental, but either way its classy presentation and interesting enemy-dodging mechanics look perfectly suited to on-the-go gaming. IOTA’s Journey should be another solid puzzle addition to the App Store, and is set to release next month on October 26th.
One feature that stood out on this first glimpse of IOTA’s Journey was the way the pacing is entirely set by the player. In a similar way to turn-based dungeon crawlers, enemies only move when IOTA presses onwards, and so little need for quick reactions while playing. However, the antagonistic red opponents only move along set paths related to the directional arrow on their body, and so their behaviour can be predicted and accounted for when swiping IOTA to the finish line. With the appearance of multiple friendly dots that all move in sync – and must all arrive at separate final goals on the maps – there is a lot of potential for some truly complex puzzles within IOTA’s Journey, and you’ll be required to think multiple steps ahead before committing to any one swipe. Only 46 levels is slightly concerning, but quality is always preferably to quantity, and I’m sure future updates with additional chapters could build on the solid foundations within IOTA’s Journey. For more information on IOTA’s Journey before its October 26th release, be sure to swipe along to our forum thread.
