If you’ve paid attention to recent design trends, simple really is better! From the sleek styling of Microsoft’s Metro interface to minimalist home decor, everyone seems to be jumping on the simple-is-better bandwagon. It appears now that Mobile Video Games are also jumping on the trend. However, simple doesn’t mean retro or yesteryear, rather a simple yet intriguing concept. Alien Spaceship for iOS is the perfect example of this marrying simple gameplay with challenging sweat mongering adventure.
X Marks The Spot
Alien Spaceships houses two similarly designed yet wildly different games with comparable objectives. In Asteroid Dock, the goal is to get spaceships to land on docks with spaceships already on them. In Planet Dock, you are given empty docks and need to dock the spaceships. There are 120 levels total in the entire game which not surprisingly becomes more challenging with each passing level.
Earlier levels reveal one or two spaceships to dock. Latter levels require many spaceships to dock. By this point you might be thinking this is too simple. There is where you are wrong. In both games, precision is key. In Planet Dock for example, docking a spaceship is only possible when one of the docks passes the spaceships. Spaceships are set in a line formation. The docks which resemble spokes have to be directly over the ships in order for docking to take place. Miss the dock by a millimeter? Oh well, game over pal! Imagine doing this with as many as 10 ships to dock. Oh, and did we mention that the planet and asteroid rotates? Did we also mention the speed of the rotation can increase and decreases randomly? Did we also mention that the objects can spin clockwise or counterclockwise? Seriously, you will cringe in frustration, but it is all in good fun.
Verdict
We were happily frustrated with Alien Spaceships. Each time we wanted to put it down, we picked it back up because we simply had to beat our high score. Even the earliest levels present a challenge as you try to figure things out. In this case, simple is better. Alien Spaceships is no frills and minimalism at its best. To add icing to the cake, it also has a cool soundtrack.
