How to Play
In Amazing Alex,
you are given a goal each level you have to achieve: in the first
levels, its getting a ball into a basket using ramps and a force called
gravity.
, Rovio's newest physics puzzle game is great for people of all ages, but you won't find yourself quite as addicted as Angry Birds.
Rovio released its newest game franchise to the Apple App Store and Google Play on Thursday morning. It's a rebranded version of Casey's Contraptions,
which was released last year for iPad and was well-reviewed then. It's
interesting that Rovio decided to simply purchase and rebrand a game
rather than coming up with their own new game ideas, but with the
success of Angry Birds, they have cart blanche to do what they
like. So this review is partially for a game that has been out a year,
with some changes.
Amazing Alex takes place in a young boy's messy house. Each level presents a different physics
puzzle that involves cleaning up: you have to put balls in a bin,
topple some books, or pop balloons. You then use the objects available
to you to solve the puzzle, earning bonuses for each of the three stars
you collect.
The physics puzzles are a little
more clever than some games, because there isn't just one solution to
every problem. You can place several pieces -- like shelves or pipes --
on a blank canvas to experiment with the game's physics. You don't also
need every piece available to you (and they change every level) to solve
a puzzle, meaning there is room fiddle with your designs.
This is where the game could have
extra challenge, and it misses the boat. There are no time bonuses for
solving a puzzle in one go, for not using all your pieces, or solving it
an allotted time. The only achievement is collecting the three stars
each level, which you'll have to do to unlock new sections of the game.
The game's difficulty isn't too
challenging; the first few levels serve entirely as tutorial, and it
won't be hard for you to breeze through the first couple of zones. The
joy in the game lies more with its sandbox nature, and it challenges you
to create whatever Rube Goldberg can most creatively solve the level.
That might not satisfy the most achievement-hungry player, but it is far
more creative and would be a great title to help kids' problem solving
skills.
This is especially true in the
section of the game that allows you to create your own levels with the
same simple household objects. Players will be able to publish and share
their own levels with friends, giving the game an extra creative level
lost on many mobile titles.
Rovio says they will offer regular, free updates to the game, similar to their support for Angry Birds. The game is easily worth the 99 cents, but those looking for a serious challenge might not get into the game.