This week, we’re taking a look at See The Light, a puzzle game from a new developer by the name of The Animal Farm Creations. In See The Light, the aim of the game is to direct different coloured lights to their respectively coloured goals. This is achieved through strategically placing mirrors and other objects on the game grid to redirect the light beams. Here’s the description from the official Android Market:-
A puzzle game set in deep space, See the Light challenges you to manipulate light using mirrors, lenses, energizers, absorbers, and other tools to solve 80 levels.  See if you can overcome increasingly tricky puzzles while unlocking every award!
As mentioned, gameplay in See The Light revolves around guiding beams of light towards goals by dropping objects which have differing effects on the light beams on to the game grid. There are 9 different objects in all; mirrors, which reflect light at a 90 degree angle; lenses, which er, deflect light through them at a 90 degree angle; mirror balls, which send beams of light reflecting off in multiple directions at once, prisms, which can deflect light at different angles depending on their orientation and the colour of light that hits them; black holes which suck light in, preventing it from travelling any further; two destructive ‘energizers’ which destroy objects in the path of the beam of light and two rotaters which shift an object clockwise or counter-clockwise by 90 degrees. The game is controlled via the touchscreen, you just drag the object you want to place from the sidebar and it snaps to the invisible game grid. You can then tap on the object to rotate it until you’re happy with it’s angle, where you can then tap a little green tick that appears next to the object to confirm it’s placement. These controls were a little inaccurate at times, particularly in the bottom right hand corner of the touchscreen, but the developer has confirmed to us that this is to be fixed with an upcoming update.
Graphically, the game is pretty simple. The objects are nothing startling to look at, but they don’t need to be for a puzzle game like this. They are crisp, clear and easy to make out against the starry background though. There is a mellow feeling soundtrack to the game, which, even after playing the game for a good while, I never found annoying – to my mind that’s about as close to a compliment as you can get.
Gameplay in See The Light is engaging and I caught myself on a few occasions simply staring at levels for a few minutes at a time, trying to plan out my next move. Gameplay isn’t forgiving. If you fail at any given level, you ahave to reset the level. I’d like to see an “undo last” type button in there as there were a few times I placed an object only to realise I’d set it at the wrong angle – which is a little grating when you’re at the end of an elaborate set of object placements. That’s a minor criticism though, and probably more indicative of my ham-fistedness at times than any failings in game design. One thing that is glaringly missing from the game though, is the opportunity to skip a level and come back to it later: some of the 80 levels are fiendishly difficult to crack, taking a lot of experimentation before reaching that eureka moment. Add to this the fact that even some of the earlier levels are real head-scratchers and I can see a lot of people being put off before they’ve even finished a quarter of the levels due to frustration. It’s worth persevering with though, as those moments when you nail a level you’ve been staring at impotently for the past 15 minutes are their own reward.
Overall, I’m reasonably impressed with this as a first effort. The progression of difficulty could possibly be tweaked a little as some levels which I felt were very difficult were often followed by levels that were completed on the first attempt, within seconds. A level editor would also be a great addition to a game like this and would help keep interest up. The inability to skip levels will undoubtedly see some frustrated folks reaching for the refund button within the first 24 hours, but die-hard puzzlers will find they’re kept busy and will certainly enjoy the challenge. The game is currently available on the Android Market for $0.99, but this is apparently a limited time half price offer which ends on July 2nd, when the price reverts to it’s usual $2.00.
