Another puzzle game comes from Triolith Entertainment. You control a young wisp called Eira that needs to get back home and is lost inside a forest. It is up to you to navigate the challenging mazes and keep her safe from all kinds of dangers. If you like platform games and could use a 2 hour gaming break then continue reading.
First of all, this is a platform game where you control a shining ball that needs to get somewhere else inside the maze and avoid touching certain moving objects. This should have been the first sentence of the official description. The ball is subjected to obvious physics (gravity and inertia) and controlling it happens by touching the screen to go up and tilting sideways to go left or right.
Gameplay
There are only 3 worlds available, each with 10 distinct levels. The game can be completed in a little over 2 hours. There is no time limit per level and no limit of lives. Each level has 3 diamonds that can be collected on the path to the exit. Collecting these doesn’t seem to affect anything (you do not get any prizes or statuses by doing so). The level design is OK and pretty straight forward. Every obstacle is fairly obvious and coming up with a solution is easy.
Apart from moving the ball around, there are a lot of other things you should avoid or use to your advantage:
- Surfaces covered in blood should not be touched.
- Blood balls with moving patterns and blood balls that go through walls and follow you should not be touched.
- Creatures that spawn blood balls should not be touched.
- Ice shrines convert your ball into ice. This allows you to go right through bloody areas in order to reach other parts within the level. Watch out because if you hit a wall at high speed you will destroy the ball. The physics could be tweaked a little here: I’ve noticed that it doesn’t take into account the angle of the impact, so briefly swiping a wall will also destroy it.
- Fire shrines enable the ball to light up spider webs and access other areas by doing so.
- Earth shrines allow you to destroy cracked walls. It also makes the ball heavier and harder to move.
- Wind tunnels accelerate the ball. You can spot them by the leaf cloud going into one direction.
- Save points provide new starting points in case you are destroyed.
One annoying aspect is the sluggish feel of the game. The responsiveness could use an improvement. I’ve tried running on low quality and safe mode but the feeling is identical.
Story
The shining ball is actually Eira, a wisp that has to escape the terrible dangers within the forest and get back home safely. Sadly, the storyline is quite poorly integrated. There is no apparent reason for the 3 worlds (scenery and enemies are the same) and there are no changes in the events. Finishing the game also doesn’t provide any epilogue whatsoever.
The developers boast about the great music and awesome graphics. I must admit the soundtracks are pretty good and the levels look great.
Conclusion
The game has an unpolished feel concerning menus and storyline. It looks like it’s been rushed into the Market without much thought about these. There are some UI related problems that could be fixed:
- Tapping next after you finish the last level in one of the worlds takes you back to the current world’s level list, not the next.
- Hitting back within the game does nothing. However, on the world select screen there is no other way to get to the main menu besides pressing the phone’s back button. Inconsistency.
- Restarting the current level loads that level again (time wasted).
The gameplay is the strong point here although it does feel a little slow responding to the player’s feedback. Integrating the story into the game, polishing the menus and adding more levels would definitely make this a must-have game. Until then I would recommend it only if you love puzzle games.
Summary
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| name | Wisp |
| publisher | Triolith Entertainment AB |
| price | 1.10 USD |
| advertising-supported | no |
| version | 1.2 |
| size | 27.57 MB |
| developer contact | info (at) triolith (dot) com |
Other resources
If there is something we missed out or you wish to find other resources for this application, be sure to check the following links:
- developer’s site: Triolith
- Triolith’s Facebook page
- official game announcement
- official trailer
- review and video review by playandroid.com
- video review by androidapps.com
- review by Beef Jack
- review on SwedroiD (in Swedish only)
- Tri