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Orbital (iPhone)

I had this recommended to me by some guys on a game developer forum, and I have to say it’s one of the few really shining examples of “easy to learn,  hard to master” gameplay in the casual games genre – although this is really a case of a “light” version of this particular principle.

Controls -  are extremely simple – there is in fact only one control, which is “tap anywhere” to fire the cannon. The cannon itself rotates from side to side automatically, so there is no need for anything else. Just tap when it’s in the angle you want to fire.

Menus & Interaction - The menus are simple and intuitive, just as they should be. You can view online leaderboards, as well as post your highscores to Facebook.

Gameplay – You start with an empty screen. Every time you fire your cannon, your “bullet” bounces off walls or other spheres, until its kinetic energy has been spent. It then grows until it hits another object (i.e. it grows to fill the maximum amount of space possible before colliding with something.) This means that you in effect create the play field yourself.You have to hit spheres three times to remove them. Once removed, you get a point. Simple, right?

There are two game modes: pure and gravity. Pure is quite hard, with a completely linear bounce off of objects and walls. Gravity is a bit easier, and more interesting in my opinion, as your shots in this mode are attracted to the large bodies in the game area (basically it works as if the spheres are on a surface that bulges down, like the classic portrayal of how gravity works in space. Hence your shots will gravitate towards large objects, which means you can “spin” your shots.

Multiplayer – there is indeed a few options for multiplayer of the ‘hotseat’ variety. Works very well!

Sound – the audio is some of the best I’ve heard in an iPhone game. There’s not really an awful lot of it, but there is a great, mellow soundtrack that doesn’t intrude – it just sits in the background, layering a pleasant atmosphere over the game. Sound effects are also simple, but effective. It’s clear that the audio aspect of the game has been considered just as important as the rest of it.

Conclusion – The game is priced at 99cents in the AppStore, and is well worth it – because despite the initially deceptive simplicity of the gameplay, the game is actually addictive. It’s something that you can pick up and play very easily, and still enjoy after you’ve played 20+ games, which to be honest I find is usually not the case with iPhone games. It’s easy to learn, hard to master, to use an unusually worn-out cliché. It fits very well in this case. As mentioned, it shines through that the developers took a great deal of care ensuring that the controls suit the platform, that the functionality is as you would want it to be, and that the audio just works. You should go get it right now!

Tags: games, iPhone