Recently, before the end of the year, I received a very generous gift from the higher ups at my workplace. Nancy Duarte and her husband Mark Duarte surprised everyone at Duarte Design with an iPad 2! Yayyyy!
I’ve had plenty of time to play with it and I’ve found many great apps for productivity and design but found myself having a hard time finding a game I’d be willing to buy. Now, maybe I’m too critical and just a bit snooty when it comes to movies, music and games but I expect the best experience possible from these mediums. Although there are plenty of games in the AppStore to the point of being overwhelming, and many look visually gorgeous, to me most lack substance. I find myself asking whether the game has an immersive gaming experience, is it unique, does it feel like care and thought was put into it, is the audio/music top notch, etc… It’s not enough for a game to look great, I’ve been fooled into buying those games in the past, it needs to feel as if the creators of the game was as immersed in creating the game as the authors of some of our best literary classics were. Too critical? I don’t think so, I mean why shouldn’t it be that way.
Enter Super Brothers: Sword & Sworcery. An experience in visuals and music. The visuals in the game are a throwback to the days of Atari, NES and Sega Genesis but with a clear design mentality applied. And the soundtrack, supplied by Jim Guthrie, who’s music I’ve never heard before but has now been added to my music collection, is enchantingly beautiful. The music is integral to the gameplay, in fact make sure you play it with a great set of cans. I mean it! The writing really brings the pixelated characters to life and the puzzles make use of the iPad in interesting ways. Everything comes together to make you forget that you are on an iPad and your movements and interaction with it become an extension of the game itself.
