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App Army Assemble: Reky - Is this Bauhaus-inspired puzzler a must-buy on mobile?

We ask the App Army

App Army Assemble: Reky - Is this Bauhaus-inspired puzzler a must-buy on mobile?
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| Reky

Reky is a beautiful looking puzzle game that draws inspiration from technical drawings. It first launched for iOS last October but has now also made its way over to Android too. So, it seemed like the perfect time to hand the game over to our App Army and see it ranks among the many puzzlers that are available for mobile. 

Here's what they said:

Oksana Ryan

This is a great little puzzler with easy mechanics and colourful graphics, however, the background music was super annoying and I turned off the sound almost from the start of the game. There’s not much to describe the game other than you move from one puzzle to the next by moving squares around to reach the portal at the end.

There’s nothing wrong with the game, but it’s been done before, many times, and it needed a little something to elevate it from the rest. Perhaps more imaginative backgrounds or a storyline with an objective at the end of each section would have been better. However, as a puzzler, it ticks all the boxes and has plenty of playability.

Jojó Reis

Excellent puzzle game with relaxing sound and a great challenge, the levels will increase with each level surpassed and making you think more and more. Game is highly recommended to play anywhere, its mechanics and design are very well worked. Really good.

Rohit Bhatia

Reky is truly a puzzle game and I am more of a platforming, Metroidvanias like Ori and the Blind Forest type of guy. But I loved Reky, I played till Chapter D in the time I had and I was actually impressed by it a lot. Firstly, the graphic style is simplistic and sharp and colourful at some times which I like. It's kind of mixed Monument Valley style with shorter levels. The early levels like in A, B or even C chapters are fairly easy and can be completed in a few minutes. The difficulty curve is not as painful as it is in all puzzle games. The music is kind of boring in my opinion.

So the catch of the game is you have a blob thingy and you have to make it reach the Point B, simple nothing groundbreaking. Where the game shines is the level design and way the levels are done, when you first look at a level, your mind will be working like ok this block needs to be on this side, so if I go that side and move that block in that direction it will connect to me that other one and you complete a level in your own mind but that is only true for some levels, as it gets more complex.

The touch controls are ok, though the swipe has caused me many frustrating moments and sometimes I was going to swipe but the blob jumped and it counted as a move and I got 2 stars instead of 3 on a level. Surely you can go back and complete it but it gets annoying after a while. I think the developer can fix it as it's a touch screen game. But in all honesty, I like it and if more puzzle games are like I won't mind giving them a chance. Highly Recommend this. My rating would be 4/5.

Dries Pretorius

Reky is a game where a black blob finds its way through a perceptually ambiguous and manipulable environment to a dark portal. In the crowded genre of contemplative geometrical puzzlers, it borrows from many sources and manages to create an original and challenging experience.

While the environments enter into the ambiguity of perspective we see in Hocus, there are elements in the environment that can be coloured for manipulation, while that manipulation is direct in the style of “PUSH” or Klocki, the manipulation is done by soaking up, carrying and discharging the colours into cubes with your blob. You can’t carry more than one colour at a time, and you can’t manipulate a coloured cube while your blob is on it, each colour will cause a cube to react differently to activation. As you progress more colours are introduced, along with various other elements.

The puzzle design is strong, with the blob’s role in powering the puzzle environment resulting in abstract Fox-Rabbit-Cabbage-Boat logical trappings. My only gripe is with the occasionally awful touch registration, which had me slamming my thumb down in bouts of frustration, trying to command my deaf blob. Slowing down and deliberately impressing the tip of a finger with pronounced meaning usually does the trick. The puzzle design is great despite the occasional control frustrations, and if you enjoy this genre of puzzlers and you’re looking for a fresh take, I would highly recommend it.

Armaan Modi

I wanted to try Reky because it was a good looking puzzle game with a finite number of levels, something which I appreciate because I'm tired of seeing pixel art games. Reky is a puzzle game where you have to complete levels by moving your dot/character to a specific portal to finish the level. It has a short tutorial so it's easy to get started, but soon enough the levels get difficult. The game can be played in both orientations.

Reky has a minimal graphics style with mostly white-and-another-colour on the screen. What I liked is that the game looks good and sharp without aliasing. The game features simple graphics and can easily run on budget phones. The game is calm/chill type of game overall because of the design, music and gameplay but I have to say that the music feels somewhat sad. I played the game for more than 2.5 hours. In the "B" levels of the game, the levels got harder and I found some issues in the game, like those which I find in several puzzle games.

What I didn't like was that the tutorial was not enough to explain the game and you have to try out a number of things to be able to finish a level. You have no way to find out which blocks are movable in which directions without actually trying to move them, which is annoying. You don't understand why some blocks are not movable. There was also a few other things like these and they made me waste my time because I had no clue what is happening!

This is also annoying since you want to finish the levels in as few moves as possible but because of this, you have to do a lot of guesses and trials. Maybe all these things the developer is aware of and are a part of the gameplay. If you are new to puzzle games or if you want a simpler game, you might face the problems that I did. I'll try to complete all levels perfectly but it could take some time.

Overall there are a few issues but I think Reky is a very nice game and I recommend it.

Pierpaolo Morgante

Reky is a wonderful game. The idea is pretty simple: you have to guide a ball to the exit of the level, and you can interact with the environment in a simple and intuitive way. The best selling point of the game is the graphics, which I really loved. The developers also added the possibility to change the background colour, which adds a lot of value to the levels. I’ve played ~20 levels, it’s never frustrating and it’s enjoyable. I highly recommend it to all the Monument Valley’s fans!

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Paul Manchester

A very simplistic stylised puzzler which up to now hasn’t proved too frustrating. The main problem I have found is that it doesn’t really do enough to distinguish itself from the raft of other similar titles on the market. As others have mentioned the touch screen controls are very hit and miss and I often moved the wrong puzzle piece. The music was peaceful enough but I did find myself slowly falling asleep when combined with the laid back gameplay - not sure if this is a plus or a minus point! If you’re looking for a generic puzzle game to pass the time this is pleasant enough, just don’t expect anything groundbreaking from the experience.

Funem

Reky is an interesting puzzle/logic game with a nice clean look to it that makes it look like a technical drawing that has come to life. The game involves moving a simplistic blob around the screen sliding and changing the colour of blocks or passing through portal type holes so that the blob can reach the end goal. Like every good puzzle game, there are rules to what you can do and what you can’t like only being able to move a block when you have applied a colour to it and you can only do this, if you can see one of its sides, not just it’s top and then it can only be moved if you are not standing on it.

The way the game is played and the way levels are constructed, means you need to have a very good special awareness as you are moving parts of the overall landscape to enable your path through the level. It’s a more literal, simplified version of monument valley, which required you to move the landscape to reach your end goal, but Monument Valley then played with perspective to enable you to traverse levels, this game plays as if the landscape that makes up the puzzle was real, and you could construct it in real-world (apart from the portals of course).

The game requires you to think ahead so you know where blocks will be so that when you move other blocks they will be in the correct positions for you to complete the puzzle. Sometimes I completed levels in fewer moves than I thought would be required because my mind was thinking too far ahead and not realising that moving a block would actually complete the level at that point.

Levels can be completed at your leisure but you can earn star rating for completing them in the minimal number of moves which makes you sit there before you start some levels just mentally shuffling the blocks around, it definitely makes you think. The thing about this game is that is too hard to explain without it sounding more complicated than it is, it’s like chess, the explanation of the game and its mechanics sound complicated but when you start playing, you realise how easy it actually is.

Mark Abukoff

As the description says, it’s a minimalist puzzler. Very minimalist. Get from point A to point B by manipulating and sliding boxes. All in all, it seems like some huge and odd construct that you’re travelling through, with the aesthetic of a technical drawing. While the tutorial pretty much explains it all, I still found myself doing a bit of head-scratching and experimenting to get through.

The ability to undo moves and look back at earlier stages helps. Not overly frustrating, and a pleasant enough puzzler along the lines (but sufficiently different) of Monument Valley and other similar games. Graphics are clean and clear, and the sound is decent. Controls are good enough, though I occasionally found myself sliding the box when I meant to move, or moving when I meant to slide the box. Overall a solid experience for puzzle fans.

Mike Lisagor

I like this game. The tutorial isn’t the best but you can go back to it later on. Once you get the feel of the puzzles, the difficulty ramps up. The perspective is similar to Monument Valley and that throws another challenge since you are dealing with the characteristics of not only what each colour does, but also what happens to the path after the blocks move. I have had issues with the game not recognizing my taps at times, but there is a undo button that helps. I would recommend this to anyone that enjoys a good puzzler. I had this on my wish list before this opportunity came up and it lived up to my expectations.

Jim Linford

I had a little go of this game. It’s like an Ikea diagram come to puzzle life. The objective is simple. Get to the chopper... I mean exit in the required number of jumps. As in all puzzle games, it starts off simple then twists your noggin' until you declare 'A-ha! Got it'. The only issue I had is maybe down to my error. I meant to move a block with a swipe but my character moved instead. Annoying if you want to beat the stage with a three-star ranking. So far so good, I like this game.

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Stephen Gregson-Wood
Stephen Gregson-Wood
Stephen brings both a love of games and a very formal-sounding journalism qualification to the Pocket Gamer team.