App: The Curse
Rating:
Price: $0.99
Developers: Toy Studio
Device Used: 3rd Gen iPod Touch
by Rico
Professor Layton has been Nintendo`s Puzzle genre mascot for a number of years now and it`s felt like a painfully long wait for a game similar to that of the Professor Layton series to be released on the iOS platform. While other games such as `The Secret of Chateau de Moreau,` have come close they still haven`t quite found the secret ingredient for making the puzzles nail bitingly difficult whilst still leaving the player completely addicted. The reason why the Professor Layton franchise was so successful was due to it`s wide variety of puzzles and immaculate attention to detail and Toy Studio`s `The Curse` comes as close to Professor Layton as we`re ever going to get.
The game initiates by showing us a brown sealed tome entitled `The Curse`, the app provokes us to open the book, which kicks off the games narrative. The opening of the book destroyed a binding spell which released the sinister `Mannequin` where the only means of returning him back to his paper prison is by completing the game`s 100 puzzles.
There are many things that `The Curse` does right, the graphics are clean, the puzzles are very well polished and the variety between them is massive. The audio within the game is immaculate with the soundtrack fitting in with the game`s theme incredibly well, the voice acting for `The Mannequin` suits the atmosphere that the developers are trying to create. There are 10 categories of puzzles including Logic, Number and Reaction. Out of the 10 categories the ones that I personally enjoyed the most were the riddles, the initial riddles are almost obvious with the difficulty increasing rapidly as the game progresses.
There are a few minor hinderances that the hold `The Curse` from it`s true potential, unfortunately the developers opted to use `in app purchases` to sell hints to players, 4 hints for 0.99$ is pretty extortionate since the game itself is 0.99$. The difficulty curve of the game is incredibly steep with some of the puzzles becoming difficult incredibly early on which may cause the game from reaching a casual audience.
`The Curse` is a great handheld time waster especially for those fond of the puzzle genre, this game is not recommended, however, for those with little patience as the game can be unforgivingly cryptic with instructions.
