Symbol6

Symbol6 is a game for the iPhone and iPod Touch that does exactly what you'd expect it to. It's a puzzle game, yes, and offers nothing you wouldn't expect from its genre. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as Symbol6 is a delightful experience no matter which way you play it. Gameplay can be explained quite simply. Tiles are spread amongst a wheel and need to be moved as incoming tiles speed towards them. The longer you play, the faster they come at you. Every once in a while, you'll get a flashing red tile which can affect the color or gradient of every tile on-screen. It may sound like a challenge, but changing the color of the tiles may work in your favor.

The first thing you'll notice with Symbol6 is its eye popping visuals. For a game with little to no variety, Gogogic Inc. makes up for lack of features with a sleek, classy design that couldn't work in its favor any more than it already does. The swapping of tiles is done by simply dragging your finger, leaving no room for you to blame your lack of skill on a gameplay flaw. On occasion, the tiles don't "snap" into place, though there's a fairly large window for cushion when it comes to getting your tile where it needs to go. Accelerometer controls seem to work as intended, never tilting the wheel when you clearly didn't mean to. The addition of a leaderboard and a daily "best of" list definitely gives a bit more incentive to outperform the competition.

It's hard to knock a game with so few features to discredit. The game works. Plain and simple. If you're a puzzle and speed hound, there's nothing more you could ask for in such a cheap application. On the other hand, the bare bones feel of Symbol6 may deter some people from making the purchase. With an entire dollar bill at stake, you've got to be picky about which apps you're spending your hard earned money on. If you'd like to be picky about things you could ask for some sort of multiplayer, dynamic backgrounds/graphics, or more variety in the size of the wheel. Regardless, you'd be nitpicking about something that succeeds where others fail.

So is Symbol6 worth the purchase? I'd say so. I would also argue that it doesn't have enough "meat" behind it to warrant costing money in a sea of free apps, but the hard work is apparent enough. The ease of jumping in and out of a game for a quick-fix is certainly the draw here. I'm not sure I'd be able to spend over 20 minutes with this game, but it's a godsend when I've only got a few minutes and an itch to get my twitch-gaming on. Symbol6 is a fantastic puzzle game that's sure to give you the joy and frustration typical for the genre.