It’s hard to imagine that a connect-three puzzle could possibly be the stepping stone for an iPhone-only MMO, but that’s exactly what Aurora Feint is. Akin to Panel de Pon or Planet Puzzle League, the primary goal of Feint is to connect three or more blocks together and chain combos to rack up points. In the process however, you’re unlocking skills and scrolls while leveling up your character. It sounds like an odd mix, but adding RPG elements to Bejeweled to form Puzzle Quest worked out great, and it’s no exception here. What’s more strange than the genre fusion is the price; Feint could easily have been made available for the now-standard $10, but it’s available to the masses for free.
Its visual quality has a great attention to detail, from the colorful explosions of connected blocks to the stone-carving aesthetic of each of the movable block. Unfortunately, the art direction in the fictional fantasy world is a dark setting, which makes some of the blocks a little tough to see on the iPhone’s/Touch’s small screen, but you’ll learn to look less at the colors when dragging blocks to form horizontal and vertical lines of blocks, and more at the symbols.
With each block representing an element, you’ll harvest the riches of Earth, Water, Wind, Fire and Shadow to unlock various skills to assist you as you progress through various mines, grinding away to level and earn more elemental currency. It’s an addictive method, and with quick leveling and huge payouts, you’ll be spending as much time in the store and smithing out purchased blueprints as you do mining.
That is to say, a really, really long time.
A fairly obvious, but infinitely brilliant addition to the standard formula (aside from the RPG skills and leveling) is the inclusion of tilt. Using the iPhone’s accelerometer, tilting the device results in a gravitational shift that forces blocks in various directions as well as changes the direction at which you can push and pull blocks.
This feature deepens the strategy immensely, whether you’re tilting into combos or adjusting to reap in huge amounts of water-resource. You’ll soon notice yourself tossing and turning the iPhone in every which direction, which becomes slightly annoying, but you’ll be so satisfied with how much fun you’re having with the game that it’ll be overlooked in favor of fat loot and new skills.
Aurora Feint doesn’t feature a ton of original ideas, but combining various aspects of other genres creates for a hell of an addicting experience that, should it evolve in to the MMO it strives to be, will no doubt result in a few “sick” days. Rounds are fast, fun, and are periodically interrupted with news of your level-up. From there, you’ll decide whether to make yourself more of a combo-boosting badass, or continue to harvest the elements by busting blocks in to a glittery explosion for more currency. It won’t matter what direction you choose, because Feint will have you gripped enough that you won’t stop until you’ve got it all, including the horde of worthless upgrades.
Even if it’s tough to see at points, Aurora Feint is a must-own, and gives Nintendo’s handheld version of the connect-three puzzler a run for its money. If there was ever a question whether the iPhone is a viable gaming device, this is the answer.
Enjoy it gratis.
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