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From Adam Saltzman and the team that brought you the incredibly stylish endless runner
Canabalt, comes a very different sort of game. As its title implies each level
of Hundreds tasks the player with obtaining one hundred points by growing bubbles.
As their size increases, so does their value. You tap and hold on a bubble to
grow it and
as it's growing it turns red. Unfortunately, if a bubble collides
with anything else on the playing field while it's red, you die and will need to
restart the level.
What originally started life as a much simpler flash game coded by Greg Wohlwend,
Hundreds has evolved spectacularly into a much more complex beast, introducing many
different kinds of gameplay elements. Bubbles that stop moving when you tap
them, spinning saw blades that reduce a bubble to zero when touched, bubbles that you control
and can move anyway you like, permanently red bubbles and negative bubbles that you'll
need to zero out to make your chances that little bit better.
The game is oozing in style, from the soothing synth audio, to the simple yet
brilliant graphics with its contrasting color scheme. As is expected from a game
released by Semi Secret Software, everything about this title seems very
highly polished. When completing a specific level in each set of ten, you'll be presented
with a riddle.
The first of which is: "A mouse has one snout but a hand has five." Subsequent
dialogues in this emerging narrative are scrambled, so you'll need to fight hard to
reveal the game's secret and boards quickly start to require careful planning, timing
and finesse to complete.
My only gripe with the game is that on the iPhone's relatively small screen, my
thumbs sometimes impacted my visibility of some of the bubbles.
I most definitely can't blame the developer for this since this vital
component of the game is derivative of this game type. On the plus side however,
Hundreds excellently implements multi-touch support. Some of the levels
require multiple digits from each hand,
simultaneously moving bubbles before running in to saw blades.
Yeah, the game is hard.
Hundreds is available right now from the App Store for a limited time launch
price of $2.99.
The game will increase in price when the next update is released so pick this one
up today. Incredibly polished, incredibly difficult and incredibly addictive.
Hundreds will satisfy puzzle and reflex junkies alike.
Thank you so much for joining me today for another episode of Alex's iOS
game reviews. I am Alex and i'll see you again next time.