Game Reviews

Brick Roll

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iOS
| Brick Roll
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Brick Roll
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iOS
| Brick Roll

Brick Roll stars a yellow dot-muncher who has edges and corners.

Said critter looks and acts like he belongs somewhere on Pac-Man's family tree - a ferocious, predatory branch of it adapted for life in the jungle of the App Store.

Regardless of lineage, Brick Roll is an intense, original, and highly challenging puzzle-platforming experience in its own right.

Empty spaces

Thankfully, Brick Roll understands that the path to true greatness lies in inspiration, not imitation. So while the basic gameplay revolves around navigating mazes, avoiding enemies, and eating dots, it's made more interesting through the use of gravity and negative space.

Each stage is composed of blocks floating in a void. Bricky rolls around each block (he moves a bit like a flat tyre, being a square and all) automatically and collects dots as he moves.

Pressing on the right side of the screen launches him in a straight line. If another brick / platform is in his path, he latches onto it and continues rolling. If there's no object to intercept him, Bricky rockets into emptiness and loses a life.

Hazards galore

You need to gather the pellets in each level before you're allowed to move on, but tricky navigation isn't the only hazard you face in Brick Roll. Enemies orbit the same platforms you travel, and their touch is deadly.

You can wipe them out by picking up a power pellet, or by landing directly on top of them when you switch platforms. Otherwise, you can outsmart them by switching your rolling direction with a mere tap on the left side of the screen. As you progress, you also face projectiles, spikes, and tricky boss characters.

But the greatest danger in Brick Roll is by far the uncertainty that stabs you as you shift platforms. The bricks are close together in early levels, which makes them easy to see and latch onto.

As the game progresses, however, it becomes necessary to take leaps of faith - particularly if you want to find the special green dots hidden in each level. In fact, with its challenge level and its achievements based on completion time and uncovered secrets, Brick Roll might take you an age to complete at 100 percent.

"RRRRGH!!"

That said, it might also cause you to throw up your hands in resignation long before you reach that point. Brick Roll is a difficult game, and memorising levels is your best bet for success.

You need to re-visit levels over and over; make note of enemy patterns; and get a feel for where platforms are located. Sometimes you're given hints, but sometimes you just need to chisel a mental image into your brain and correct your method after you die for the tenth time.

If you have the time and patience for difficult games, Brick Roll should thrill you. It's a decent twitch game, and it gives you good reasons to replay levels.

If, on the other hand, you don't have the stomach for punishing games that boot you back to the beginning when you inevitably screw up, just throw this brick through a window and run away.

Brick Roll

Looking for a tough arcade-style challenge? Prepare to be Brick Rolled
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