Game Reviews

Duet

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|
iOS
| Duet
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Duet
|
iOS
| Duet

Duet marks your failures with splashes of gory paint. Here's where you nudged left instead of right, and here's where you panicked and failed to get out of the way in time. It's a pointer and a reminder. You must do better.

This is another game in the burgeoning minimalist twitch genre. It's all about getting from A to B on a route that's filled with death and frustration. It has all the hallmarks of the best of its ilk, from simple controls and blocky obstacles to right angles and straight lines.

And it's just as harsh as you'd expect. Possibly more-so. It thinks nothing of dropping a sudden change of direction on you at the end of a level, or letting the level shape itself as you plough into it. In short, it's every bit as good as its inspiration.

Two tails

Duet is all about controlling a pair of coloured balls - one red, one blue. They're connected by an invisible chain, and tapping on the left of the screen spins the balls in that direction, while tapping on the right spins them that way.

Stark white blocks scroll down the screen and it's up to you to twist the balls through the gaps. Each of the 50 levels contains no more than a handful of obstacles, but increasing speed and more difficult patterns mean the later levels can take a long time to complete.

The levels are split into chunks, each themed around a stage of bereavement, and each introducing new blocks to avoid. Some twist around, others pivot on an axis, and others still split off as you approach, demanding split-second reactions.

Successfully completing a level is about luck, and, if that fails, pattern recognition. You need to remember what your fingers need to do within that 30-second space, manipulating your craft precisely or failing completely.

Paid my duet

There's no flourish to Duet - just a hard-nosed gaming experience that's unafraid to pile difficulty on top of you from the start.

And in its simple moves and crushing defeats it carries that spark that pushes you to keep trying. Its challenges are eminently possible, and that means that every coloured smear on a sharp-sided block is another reason to push on.

Duet

A harsh and unforgiving game, Duet rewards those who put the work in
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.