iPhone App: Squareball
= 5 stars
Successfully navigate a square ball through a maze in this retro action puzzler.
The Good
- The retro graphics and sound recreate my childhood memories of frying my brain with hours staring at an Atari 2600 hooked up to a TV.
- Based on an amazingly basic idea that I have never seen before, and wonder why it didn’t happen in 1979: The ball just bounces up and down. Swiping on the screen doesn’t move the ball, but instead, the entire background, left or right (you can also set the iPhone tilt to control the left or right maze movement instead). Your task is to get through the maze while eliminating the green bricks, and before time runs out. Later levels introduce vanishing grey bricks and red bricks that kill instantly. Flying out of the maze through top or bottom is an instant death. That’s it.
- I’ve long had a holy grail concept of simple gaming: a truly killer game can ride on gameplay alone — fancy graphics aren’t necessary. And therfore, it could be represented by primitive blocky graphics like that on the 2600. Space Invaders, Breakout, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Pac-Man are all successful games despite crappy graphics. Tetris is an example of a killer game developed much later, that could have been on the 2600. And now we have Squareball.
- When you die, it’s instantaneous, with a sudden black screen. The feeling is like a knife to the heart, but you’re soon playing again. This is the type of game that evokes involuntary utterances of “Oh s**t / you b**** ” etc. This is fun.
- Based on such a simple concept, all the gameplay comes down to level design and a great job has been done here. There are several themes of going through an ocean, falling through a pit, and going through caves. That all of this is evoked through such simple graphics is notable.
The Bad
- Help, I’m stuck on Desert: Necropolis and can’t get out.
Conclusion
After playing several graphically complex role playing style iPhone games, along comes Squareball as a reminder on how a simple concept can still make an awesome game. This game should have existed on that childhood 2600.
iTunes App Store Link: 
Ooh, looks interesting. Worth a download.
Definitely. Be prepared to swear often in frustration.
Wow. Bought, started playing, and yeah…it’s frustrating. I thought I had unlimited lives until I lost. Thankfully, I can go back to the level I was playing.
Really tricky, though. Feels like I’ve played something similar, but nothing specific comes to mind.
Do you drag the screen, or tilt it? Haven’t decided which one to stick with just yet.
Yep am currently stuck on level 12, desert: necropolis. And this is amateur difficulty. Been using the touch control — your comment reminds me to give the tilt controls a try; maybe I’ll finally get past that level.
I found out about Eliss the other night — another very simple game, graphically. Makes up for it by being fun, though.
Looks like it could be another Atari game, except for the multitouch part. Grab the Lite version for an idea of how it works — that sold me to get the full thing.
Gets tough when you need to put the phone down on a table, because you need to use several fingers. This isn’t a game to play on the train.
I was on level 2, then bought Drop7 to add some variety. I think it’ll be a while before I come back to this.