Time for another game review.  Up today is yet another physics-based puzzler (I know, I know, it seems like every second game in the Android market is a physics game, but it’s a popular genre).  Today it’s Newton by Badlogic Games.  Gameplay in Newton revolves around shooting white projectiles from a yellow cannon at a pink circle (any metaphorical sexual connotations you may draw from that scenario are purely coincidental I’m sure…), using a number of objects which alter the shell’s trajectory in different ways to navigate around obstacles of varying sizes.  Some objects have their own gravitational pull, others use anti-gravity to push the shell away and there are other objects which the shell will deflect off of at an angle relative to the angle it strikes them.
The lite version (as of time of writing, only the lite version is available, but the full version will be available soon) contains 21 levels, of which the first handful are basically a tutorial, introducing you to the various tactics and game objects.  The cannon is static, but can be rotated to change the angle the projectile is fired at.  In each level, the objects I mentioned earlier can come in one of two forms- those that can be moved around the level; and static ones that are locked in place.  You must use your judgement to manipulate the objects and angle of trajectory such that your shell hits the pink circle.  The less attempts you make before hitting, the higher your score.  You can submit your high scores to an online leaderboard from within the game if you nail a particularly tricky shot in one go and feel like bragging about it.
I found gameplay to be simple enough to grasp quickly, yet challenging enough to be fun.  The controls utilise the touch screen well, although I did find occasionally that fine tuning the angle of the cannon using the virtual keys that pop up was nowhere near as responsive as dragging my finger from the cannon in the direction I wanted to aim, which I suspect is very possibly the opposite of what the developer had planned, but that’s just my experience and your own mileage may vary.  The more difficult levels can be quite devious, but the game is quite forgiving in that, as far as I can tell, you have an infinite number of firing attempts (at least, I never seemed to run out of shots), so you can tweak away at your angle and object placings to your heart’s content.
Graphically, the game isn’t much to write home about.  It’s reminiscent of Space Physics in it’s look, but of a lower quality.  In an attempt to improve the visuals, the developer updated the game with a more 3D feel to it, but some of the original players prefered the 2D version and complained, so to keep everyone happy, the developer decided to allow players to choose the look they prefer between the two graphical modes, 2D and 3D.  I didn’t notice a huge difference between the two if I’m honest (see below), and, happily, it doesn’t really impact on the gameplay either way.

Overall, this is a solid little puzzler.  It has just the right level of difficulty versus accessibility for a mobile game and I can see it getting picked up every so often to fill in 5 minutes here and there.  It’s let down a bit by it’s graphics, but it isn’t exactly painful to look at and there are titles with far far worse graphics on the market than Newton, believe me.  The full version of the game will come with at least 80 more levels than the lite version and it will also contain a level editor (see here for further info and a screenshot).

The lite version is available now for free on the Android Market.  The full version should be live soon.  The developer has yet to decide on how much it will cost, but has confirmed that it will be below €1.50.

Some selected user comments-
Enjoying it.  Looking forward to the full version. (5 out of 5 stars)
Game is good but eventually gets tedious. (3 out of 5 stars)
This game is fun and challenging. (4 out of 5 stars)

App Store HQ Rating:-
Android apps at AppStoreHQ