Reflexions - Glowing!!!

Have you played the games that have simple graphics? They tend to get boring after a while, we all need colour and graphics, animation, etc. So while developers were striving for better and more colourful graphics, someone made a simple game like Next Wars using simple geometric shapes and how can we forget Geometry Wars.

The simple graphics had suddenly become the new black. The games are lean, mean and sexy. Reflexions is no exception, it is another wonderful game published by YoYo games that demonstrates the power of their game engine GameMaker. The game is a derivative of Deflektor, a game that I recollect from the 8-bit computer games day where a beam of light has to be reflected using mirrors to reach the target. The concept is similar, but the laser beam is not a ball and the mirrors are small platforms that can be reflected to change the direction of bounce of the ball.

First Impressions

On staring the game, it has the slick look and feel that most Flash apps have, So I take it that the lead developer is coming from a Flash platform. The game is played on a Dark background that highlights the red, blue and green colours with the glow around them. The music is soothing and appropriate. The gameplay is simple, tap the element that you want to rotate/flip.

The gameplay

After about so many games and making games myself, Who really reads instructions, my eyes search for the big Play button to start the game. The screen has the words Start and a pulsating ball in green which then launches the ball and the words TAP appear near the deflecting platform. Tapping it will change the route of the ball and the words Collect appear. The ball collected the Square and the point in Blue near Exit started to glow. This is where I got stuck. How do I get the ball to the exit point?? This was just the tutorial or the first level. So I started to look for the instructions on how do I move the mirrors to be able to deflect the ball. Then after a few moments of Panic and shock, I realised that the game is interactive as compared to the earlier ones that had setup your board and watch the action. So tapping the mirrors at a particular point in time of the bounce got the ball to the Exit.

The screen layout and the Game

The level completes with some brilliantly animated text fx, the stars light up like a tubelight, flickers and lights up. The screen randomly flickers an element as if it was a light that flickers when it is about to die or is faulty, this gives a wonderful feel to the game even on the summary screen, which is perhaps the simplest and the most slick one I have seen for a very long time. There are small little things that could be missed, like particles that emit when the ball hits the walls or the mirrors, or when they collect a square.

The verdict

I love puzzle games, this one is a game that I could spend hours playing, not mindlessly but in an engaging fashion, it does not have loud jarring music that I would have to jump and mute the device in a public place.

Screenshots

SUMMARY
Software : Reflexions
Version : 1.0
Publisher : YoYo Games Ltd
Website : http://yoyogames.com/
Twitter : @yoyogamemaker
Platform : iOS 3.0 +
Price : $1.99