Monospace

Innovation often demands too much of games. Wild new concepts and bizarre elements are required for a game to be considered innovative, while those that reinvent old ideas in new ways are overlooked as derivative or borrowed.

Thinking about how to transform the box through iteration can be just as innovative as thinking outside of it and that's exactly what minimalist puzzler Monospace does.

Monospace takes the centuries-old game sokoban and toys with the perspective. Like its ancient inspiration, your goal lies in manoeuvring a box in enclosed stages.

The game limits movement of your blue cube in interesting ways, however. Every stage occurs within a large cube, smaller boxes filling the interior. Using your blue box, the objective is to clear out all the white cubes in the level.

You're only able to move the blue box when a white box sits adjacent to it. It's not as simple as rolling over white boxes, though. Black boxes stand as walls that block movement and there are also red cubes that jump your blue box forward an extra space.

Working around these special squares would be challenging enough, but Monospace complicates matters further by switching the perspective.

You begin each level with a 3D view. Flicking a finger across the screen rotates the level in the corresponding direction. Double tap the screen, though, and the stage collapses into a 2D image.

Regardless of the interior's 3D make up, whatever appears to be on the 2D plane shows up in the perspective shift. It's in this flat view of the level that you can victimise white cubes with your little blue box.

By changing the perspective, Monospace transforms simple puzzles into complex, mind-bending spatial riddles. The mechanics of play remain simple, yet finding solutions to many of the more advanced arrangements can be mentally taxing.

The cerebral challenges Monospace present cater more to the contemplative puzzle-solver than to the casual, quick fix gamer.

More than 60 stages across four difficulties - Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced, and Expert - offer a range of puzzles from easily solved to totally perplexing.

Stages are organised onto 4x4 grids with new puzzles unlocking adjacent to completed ones. Should you find yourself frustrated by a particular puzzle - and you will get stuck - you always have at least another couple stages available to try.

Monospace is not without disappointment, mainly in its lack of audio. Clicks sound every time you clear a white cube from the screen, but that's it. The lack of music creates an uncomfortably silent game space. Some minimalist form of electronica would provide a perfect accompaniment.

Such an oversight stands out because of the attention lavished on the rest of the design, but it's a small mark on a unique gameplay iteration and artistic statement.