#7 - Drop Brick

Game: Drop Brick

Price: £Free / $Free | App Store |
Genre: Puzzle
Developer: iFun Studio
Rating: 4+

Design: 3/10
Sound: 5/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Overall: 5/10

Put Those Stacking Skills To Good Use
Use your balancing and stacking skills to arrange a series of blocks on scales. Achieve the target height and weight to progress to new levels and take on advanced challenges, as long as you can prevent your blocks from falling off the scales. The game is as simple as that, but don't let the low scores put you off, as this is certainly still something worth playing.

Design
The design really lets the game down although it does ensure an incredibly simple interface and makes it quick and easy to play. The background is simply ruled paper and some variation here, although perhaps a little distracting, would have been nice to see. There is incredibly minimal variation in the actual blocks that the game is played with and some variety here really would have been easy to do and would have added a nice layer of detail. All in all, it feels as though the bare minimum has been done and although this is in keeping with the simplicity of the game as a whole, it causes a lack of engagement and causes the game to drag out.

Sound
The soundtrack to the game is pleasant and is just about ambient enough to ensure the, often frustrating gameplay, is not added to by an irritating song. That said, there is an enormous amount of repitition and combined with a complete lack of SFX (there's not even a sound for the bricks landing on the platform) you'll be saving your battery in silent mode almost immediately. Sadly, the chances are you'll be doing that to ensure you have enough left to play another game rather than this one!

Gameplay
The gameplay offers a reasonably well executed puzzler that utilises the accelorometer to good effect. The controls are simple and effective with drags and swipes moving the blocks into place. Sadly, there's a great deal of repitition here too with weight and height being the only measurements of success combined with only a handful of level styles. The game offers 77 levels that increase in difficulty ensuring a decent amount of playing time and there's a nice feature that sees a number of future levels unlocked everytime you complete a level ensuring you don't get stuck and bored by one particular level. Sadly, that doesn't prevent a number of levels from becoming incredibly frustrating as the difficulty increases and the accelorometer comes more into play.

Conclusion
Overall the game has very few highlights and is unlikely to keep you entertained for long, but with a £Free price tag, it's certainly worth a look as the developer has at least achieved something that will challenge you. A lot of the free games on the App Store lack quality or are the dreaded Lite versions but this game certainly does not fall into those categories. I think as long as you take it for what it is (a short fun puzzler), then you'll get enjoyment from playing it.

#2 - Deep Deep Dungeon

Game: Deep Deep Dungeon

Price: £1.19 / $1.99 | App Store |
Genre: Action, RPG
Developer: iQubi Inc.
Rating: 9+

Design: 5/10
Sound: 4/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Overall: 5/10

I'm Going Deeper Underground!
A very structured and challenging action game that contains tiny traces of RPG. After selecting to be a guy or a girl warrior, you must make your way through countless dungeon floors eliminating enemies, levelling up on xp, gathering gold and finding the exit. After every 10 floors you will face a boss battle and upon their anhilation, advance to a new dungeon with a new theme and new enemies. Along your travels you are free to return to the safety of your camp where you can stock up on health potions as well as purchase weapon and armour upgrades. Sounds like fun, right? Let's see.

Design
The game gets off to a pretty good start with reasonably well drawn characters and a pleasant enough base camp. However, things rapidly become repeated and you soon find yourself labouring through the same old dungeons eliminating the same old enemies. Some of the enemies are particularly well drawn, but for the most part, there's nothing special. The whole game has a very cheap look and feel to it, and though this does keep things incredibly simple, it damages the experience and leaves you frustrated. The attack screen lacks animation and creativity in general with the only saving grace being the inclusion of the timed tap to attack, with the yellow bar resulting in a hit and the tiny red section getting a critical hit.

Sound
The soundtrack is terribly repetitive and it's unlikely you'll have the game out of mute more than once! The dungeon maps have no sound at all, not even the odd eery, atmospheric SFX which would have been very simple to do. The SFX in general are quite poor and there is a real lack of variety throughout the game.

Gameplay
The aim of the game is to level up your character and conquer the series of dungeons laid out before you. The game's one true saving grace is that it is quite challenging whilst being very quick and easy to pick up and play. It will definitely have you coming back to it regularly. In my experience, in order to progress with any real chance of success, you need to repeat dungeons to gather extra gold and xp to upgrade weapons and level up. This gets quite tiresome, but the Shop feature can be rewarding as you use your new upgrades to slay enemies more easily. The controls are perfect for the game. A single tap to move and a single timely tap to launch an attack. It's also refreshing to see a game of this style being played in portrait, allowing you to play with one hand - perfect for holding on when on the tube!

Conclusion
If you're looking for an easy, pick up and play RPG styled game, then this is pretty much the best I have come across so far. Anyone new to the RPG genre might like this as a starting point, as it utilises the key elements in their simplest form, although I must stress this really isn't a true RPG. Overall this game is dissapointing although the release in its current form could have been a great starting point. In my honest opinion, it should be free for now whilst they make developments. However, there are far worse games than this on the App Store and some of them charge significantly more, so I'd not write this off completely. I've been playing it for about a week now and I am intent on completing it. Whether I'm enjoying the experience though, is truly debatable!