Best known for their beautifully designed apps, Kieffer Bros, the guys behind Abca, Orba and Enzo dot have given us an advance copy of their newest app which is due to hit the AppStore this coming Tuesday and let me say this, you’re gonna love it.
Aqueduct takes the popular puzzle sliding and pipe-connecting genres and fuses then together to create something that’s new and rather clever. With locked gates, chifting conveyor belts, warp portals and more this is no ordinary puzzle game. The game boasts over 140 unique puzzles which are spead over 6 chapters of difficulty.
Having been lucky enough to get our hands on a copy I’ve been playing about with this game for a few days now and let me tell you, the Kieffer Bros have outdone themselves with this one. As you’d expect the visual design of this app is near perfect right down to the smallest touches, such as the little puff of white smoke when you unlock a new level. I don’t think the screenshots do this game justice. Once you start playing you’ll realise how smooth every animation is, even on my old iPhone 3G I don’t think i’ve many other games that run this well.
The contols also work perfectly, when moving tiles around the board they move fluidly and quickly and the drag and drop controls are accurate.
The game starts off easy enough as it takes you through the basic controls and aims, in fact, you’ll probably whizz through the first chapter of levels quickly enough but don’t start getting complacent with it. Pretty soon, the game slowly starts to ramp up it’s difficulty and just when you think you’ve got the game sussed out, it’ll throw a sneaky level at you that’ll have you scatching your head for a while before you manage to work it out. I’ve played around the first 50 levels and have enjoyed it thoroughly and with some levels taking a few attempts before figuring it out. With around 90 levels left to play there is definitely plenty of gameplay hours to be had out of this game.
Overall this seems to be a great little puzzle game, but it’s not without it’s little faults. The levels aren’t timed so there’s no leaderboards, local or global and no achievements that need to be unlocked, so if you’re that sort of game player you may have to look elsewhere. The only other thing that’s, well, not missing per say but would have been a great touch is the ability to create and share your own levels. This would have been the cherry on top of an already delicious cake and maybe if we beg hard enough we could get it in an update one day. Until then, there’s still plenty to love.
Aqueduct will be available Tuesday 29 June for $2.99/£1.79 and worth every last penny in my eyes.
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