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Whatcha Playing: Feintly Familiar

Posted by Derrick Sanskrit

Way back in the summer, when the iTunes App Store officially launched, iPhone owners were inundated with hundreds of sloppy applications and poorly constructed games. It was understandable, very few platforms have quality applications so early in their lifespan. There were a few surprisingly solid apps, though, that found their supportive base. One of the first games to really endear itself to JesusPhone users was Aurora Feint: The Beginning.

Here's the high-concept: the match-three puzzle play of Nintendo's Puzzle League plus the RPG character-building of Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords with touch and tilt controls thrown in. If that sounds deliciously addictive to you, you're right.

I'd read about Aurora Feint months ago, but I only got around to downloading it and playing around with it this past weekend. As a big fan of both of the above mentioned puzzlers, Aurora Feint instantly had me hooked. In order to fit your finger, the play field is smaller than that of Puzzle League, so it's a bit harder to pull of massive chains and combos. It also doesn't have the competative head-to-head aspect of either "Puzzle" game. What it does have is compelling casual fun. Just playing in "The Mine" (essentially "Endless" mode) allows you to level up, increasing the number of magicbooks and blueprints available in the "store". Blueprints are taken to the Smith and turned into time attack challenges to introduce special item tiles into the playfield and magicbooks open limited-move puzzles (exactly like Puzzle League's "Puzzle" mode) that multiply the resources collected for each colored tile.

For fans of action puzzlers like Tetris, Puzzle League and Rotohex, Aurora Feint is very likely to please. The Beginning is a great place to start, especially as its free. That's right, pay nothing. If you like that enough, there are three versions of Aurora Feint II now available on the App Store with improved graphics and new features. The biggest of the bunch, The Arena, includes new character classes, online leaderboards, online chat and offline dueling (which really seems essential, considering the atmosphere of the game as a feudal sorcery RPG), but that version will set you back eight bucks. Thankfully, you can transfer your built-up character from Aurora Feint: The Beginning over to The Arena, so your time grinding away in the freeware version won't be wasted if you upgrade.

Previously:
Myst III: Exile
Persona, Fallout, and the Trans-Pacific RPG Ideal
Holiday Blessings... and Curses
On The Road Again
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World

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+ DEL.ICIO.US

+ REDDIT

Posted Jan 13 2009, 03:30 PM

Filed under: whatcha playing, derrick sanskrit, tetris attack, puzzle quest, ipod, iphone, puzzle league, aurora feint

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John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

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