Rinth Island - (by Chillingo) [Universal]

[Sanuku]

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[Tinsel]

This looks amazing. Built in level editor or external to the app?

[metalcasket]

Originally Posted by Tinsel

This looks amazing. Built in level editor or external to the app?

It's built-in.

[sapphire_neo]

This looks very impressive.

[TinkyWinky]

Very excited about this game.

[TheFrost]

Instant buy tonight

[pavarotti2007]

Looking forward to this the most tonight.

[AnarKitty]

Hello, Game I will Be Buying Instantly.

[jyhjyh]

Thanks for the video - and all the other fine videos you share.

It looks like a must buy for me tonight

[Appletini]

Looking at the rest of the pretty uninspiring titles released so far this week, this'll be the big one for most people. This wouldn't look out of place on Steam, or as a downloadable indie console game, and bears familiar elements from games like Nebulus and Diamond Dan. Movement schemes are fixed pad and touch, although touch movement favours touching the screen relative to your chosen character, rather than free swiping, and this isn't a very user-friendly control method (certainly doesn't seem iPad-friendly).

Currently the game includes 60 levels spread over two locations (with more to come). Each location has six zones, and each of those zones has five levels; in addition, each of those levels has four modes of play. Adventure Mode is the normal one, and only requires finishing the level to unlock the next one; completing Adventure Mode for a level will also open up the other three modes for that particular level. Timed Mode has a countdown you need to beat; Steps Mode has a fixed number of moves you need to beat; Crystal Mode requires you to pick up every crystal on the level before beating it. Getting 100% completion for a zone requires successfully completing every mode for all five of its levels.

Each location begins with a short cinematic, and each zone opens and closes with a brief conversation. There are quite a number of obstacles and tools to play around with (crates, heavy blocks, rollers, gates, traps, explosives, etc.), and these are introduced gradually, with levels becoming more complex as the game progresses. In addition to the story levels, there are already quite a number of bonus maps available to download, ranging from easy to very hard. The in-game editor is very slick and user-friendly, and will have players creating and sharing their levels in no time.

The game also features a metric puddingload of achievements, and optional IAP for entirely cosmetic outfits, pets, and a short-range rewind function (one-off purchase for unlimited use). Each one of these costs a dollar but, with the possible exception of the rewind if you're prone to making mistakes, these purchases provide no actual advantage to the player.

As for the negatives, the game has the potential to become a little "samey" in terms of gameplay, although the sheer number of potential player-created levels should help alleviate that. The five different tile schemes (Beach, Primal, Cliffs, Magma, Swamp) also provide variation in graphics for the background, blocks, tools, traps and environmental objects. The fixed control pad and action buttons can be swapped over to cater for handedness, but they can't be manually repositioned. Although the standard zoomed-out view does help with planning your way around the level, I'd like to see a way to zoom in as well, as the character and level elements are rather small on an iPod Touch/iPhone.

For $1, this is a no-brainer, and it is obvious that Buzz Monkey put a lot of work - and care - into the game. With a full-featured and easy-to-use level editor, high production values for the art and music, mind-bending multi-stage puzzles, many levels and multiple game modes (with plans for expansion), story elements, a huge number of achievements, and entirely optional and unintrusive IAP as a fair way to further support the developer, it'd take a special brand of unreasonable not to appreciate this title.