Apple Thoughts: Glyph: A Strategy Game For The iPhone/iPod Touch

Product Category: iPhone/iPod Touch Game
Developer: Sandlot Games
Where to Buy: iTunes Store
Price: $4.99
System Requirements: iPhone or iPod touch
Specifications: Requires 7 Mb of free space for install.

Pros:

• Fun and Addictive;
• Challenging, but not overly so.

Cons:

• Gems are tiny and hard to hit with big fingers.

Summary:
Glyph is a fun game that can be highly addictive. Gameplay is simple to learn and it's a good game for both casual gamers and fans of strategy games.

Gameplay

Figure 1: Glyph, level 21

Glyph is a strategy game in which the player must remove a rocky barrier to reveal a Glyph that is necessary to save the world of Kuros. To remove the barrier, the player removes colored stones. When 3 or more stones of the same color are next to each other, the player can remove them by touching them. As stones are removed, the stones above them fall into their place and new stones are added from the top of the screen.

The player is aided by artifacts, devices that have various effects, including sorting the stones out by color, or destroying stones of a single color. Using artifacts won't clear away the barrier, but will often position stones in a way that makes it possible to remove them and the barrier beneath them. Artifacts become more powerful as the player clears away more stones.

Challenges

Figure 2: Assembling Glyphs

As the player moves up in levels in the quest mode, the game can become quite challenging. Obsidian stones appear that can only be removed by artifacts. In some levels, these stones contaminate colored stones next to them, turning them into obsidian as well. The player often has to move fast in order to remove the obsidian before it spreads.

After the first few levels, Glyph has a time limit. The player starts with 3 lives and if the time expires before the glyph is revealed, the player loses a life. Removing stones will add more time to the meter. When a player gets 4 glyphs, they must be connected together. This is done by watching the glyphs light up (they also play music) and then touching the glyphs in the same order, much like the pattern matching game Simon. The music in the game to be appropriate to the genre. You can also play music from your iPhone/iPod Touch library while playing.