Losing at the popular wooden block game Jenga isn’t a pleasant experience.
Having to painstakingly re-stack all of those blocks following a crushing defeat is a testing task, and it’s made even worse when you’re having to endure the mockery of your fellow player.
However, imagine how much worse it would be if someone’s very existence depended on the outcome of the game - that every removed block could bring them closer to either a sticky end or their freedom.
That's the premise of iPhone physics puzzler Bring Me Down.
Perched precariously atop a pile of blocks, columns, and other objects is a cute little critter in a round cage. It’s your job to remove the objects one by one, with the eventual aim of getting the critter down to ground level without him rolling off the edge of the platform, where he's sure to meet an untimely end in the jaws of a prowling monster.
Chip off the old blockYou can rotate the stack of objects using your finger, and this turns out to be an essential trick later in the game as the configurations become increasingly complex.
As well as getting the lovable critter to safety, you also have two bananas on each stage. If you can land these on the ground-level platform then you can consider the stage well and truly completed.
Games like Bring Me Down live or die by the authenticity of their physics engines. The one showcased here is brilliant, and this is vitally important when you’re removing blocks and trying to predict how it will impact the remaining objects.
Bring Me Down makes use of the Unreal Engine 3 engine, and the 3D graphics are reasonably impressive - just don’t go expecting the same visual sheen as the Unreal-powered Infinity Blade.
Random factorOur biggest gripe with Bring Me Down is that success seems almost as reliant on luck as skill.
Some of the levels can be completed simply by removing all of the objects as quickly as possible, while others seem so hard that you end up just randomly removing blocks to see what happens.
This almost random difficulty doesn’t totally ruin Bring Me Down, but it makes it less rewarding because on many stages you feel as if you’ve succeeded through good fortune rather than careful planning.
Dedicated puzzle fanatics will almost certainly appreciate Bring Me Down’s tight physics and the challenge of grabbing all those bananas, not to mention the respectable visuals.
But, as likeable as the game is, there’s no denying that there are more satisfying puzzle titles on the App Store. If you’ve played them all, then this is worth investigating.