In August of last year, a native version of Tiger Electronics Lights Off burst it’s way onto the jailbreak scene. In July 08, Steven Troughton Smith, the developer of this polished version of Lights Off announced he would be re-designing the game to work with the new iPhone OS 2.0 frameworks, and coincidentally bring it to the App Store. That was in July of last year. It’s not happened yet, although there is still hope ..
Aside from Smith’s version, over the weekend I got a tip off from Jeremy Curcio lead developer at 1026 Development, who was quick to inform me that their modern upcoming reincarnation of the classic game, named Black Out, was also on it’s way to the store …
[Update] – As noted by one of our readers (Andy), Blackout has in fact hit the store > [App Store]. Expect a review from us very shortly. 😀
Original Article:
There are Lights Off alternatives already on the store today, including; Lights Off Puzzle [App Store] (59p), Lights Out [App Store] (also 59p) and Lamp Off [App Store]. Lights Off. It’s a classic, but a classic which has to be done right, or you don’t bother.
I’ll admit, Black Out looks not nearly as visually polished as Smith’s version, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction, and hey! – What’s a little competition these days?. If your not one that’s familiar with the whole concept of Lights Off, let me enlighten you as to how the game works. You are presented with a 5 x 5 grid of light squares. Tapping a specific square will turn off a sequence of lights squares which correspond to that specific light square.
To reverse a move you simply hit the that specific light square again. The aim of the game is to crack the light sequence and turn off all 25 squares.
In Black Out your goal is to turn all the lights that are on to black. This is done by touching any light, which will change its status, as well as the four adjacent lights (up, down, left and right), from on to off or from off to on. There are many ways to complete each level in Black Out, so how you beat it is entirely up to you.
Black Out keeps track of your total moves taken, total levels completed and your highest level completed. At any time all of these stats can be reset, giving the player the ability to restart to try to beat the previous bests.
On the playing screen, Black Out will keep track of your total moves taken, total levels completed and your highest level completed. At any time, all of your stats are resettable. Black out is said to be shipping with 50 levels initially, with a future update doubling this to 100, and this update also adding a user-accessible level creator. According to 1026 Development we can expect to see this title ‘shortly’ at a very respectable price of £0.59 / $0.99.
We’ll be sure to review it in full, and give you our full (honest) opinion of how it plays out, once it hits the store. Until then, this has been a quick first look at ‘Black Out’ from 1026 Development.
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