There are big, complicated games, with guns, cars and
explosions, missions to complete, stories to follow and characters to
remember. Then there are simple games with just one objective where you
have to do one thing over and over again till you get it right. PUK
falls in that latter category.
In PUK, you hit larger circles with smaller circles before the time
runs out. That’s basically all you do. But despite the simple premise,
PUK is fiendishly addictive and one of the best games to have come out
on mobile in recent times. Let’s see what makes it so good.
|
Title
|
PUK
|
|
Developer
|
Laser Dog Games Ltd.
|
|
Platform
|
iOS (iPhone only)
|
Android
|
|
Release Date
|
March 2012
|
March 2012
|
|
Content rating
|
4+
|
Everyone
|
|
Size
|
12.3MB
|
18MB
|
|
Price
|
$0.99
|
Gameplay
If you thought the gameplay description for PUK (I have no idea how
to pronounce the name) in the previous paragraph was just a gross
over-simplification, you’re mistaken. You really do shoot large circles
with small circles. But there is a certain way of doing it.
In PUK, the screen is divided in two parts. The lower part has the
smaller circles, which I shall refer to as ‘strikers’, whereas the upper
part has the bigger circles, which I shall refer to as ‘bigger circles’
because I can’t think of a better name. Anyway, to shoot the strikers
towards the bigger circles, you have to pull them in the opposite
direction and then release them, which catapults them forward towards
your target. When you pull the striker back, you see a dotted like
appear in front of it, indicating where it would shoot once you release
it. The strikers can only be shot once they are in the lower portion of
the screen.
Each level starts with you having a bunch of strikers at the bottom
of the screen and an equal number of bigger circles above. Your job is
to hit all the bigger circles with the strikers before the time runs
out. Yes, there is a timer for each level and that’s what brings the
tension and excitement in the game. The timer is ridiculously stringent,
which leaves almost no room to dawdle around. You will see the bar near
the bottom of the screen that splits it in two fills up as the timer
runs. If the two ends meet, your time is over and if you still have any
circles left, it’s game over for you and you have to start from the
beginning. On the other hand, if you manage to complete a level before
the timer crosses the first line on the bar, you win a medal for that
level.
There are a 1000 levels in total. Yes, one friggin’ thousand. And the
game doesn’t follow a particular order for the levels, so you get
different levels every time you play. Of course, the levels have varying
difficulty and the game won’t throw the difficult ones at you from the
beginning. But even though it compartmentalizes the levels based on
difficulty and offers them as the game progresses the levels of a
particular difficulty still appear at random so when you replay the
game, which you will be doing quite often, you don’t feel like you’re
playing the same levels again and again.
What makes the game so fun is the sheer addictive nature of the
gameplay. You’d think flinging circles around all the time would get
boring but it doesn’t. The game gives very little time for you to make
your move and the resultant urgency is what makes is to exciting. You
don’t have all the time in the world to line up your shot and you have
to fling as fast as you can. In the initial levels, you don’t even have
to aim properly to hit something. Even if you aim vaguely in the right
direction, the strikers would end up bouncing around and manage to hit
something.
As you progress in the game and play more levels, things start
getting more difficult. You often have to guide the strikers around
walls to hit the bigger circles, often by bouncing them off the wall. At
times, you will find just one striker at your disposal, with one on the
screen and you have to hit the second striker with the first so that
the two bounce off of each other and hit the respective bigger circles.
This is where the game goes from mindless flinging to precise shooting.
The timer, however, continues to be strict, so don’t be disappointed if
you don’t manage to get too far in the game even after several tries.
It’s not just you; the game really is frustratingly difficult at times.
The Android version of the game, however, comes with its own set of
frustrations that almost manage to break the game. As mentioned before,
you have to pull the strikers down to shoot them, which are placed at
the bottom of the screen. On an iPhone, this is not an issue. You can
pull your finger close to the bottom edge of the display and even beyond
without worrying about hitting anything (there is no way you’d press
the Home button simply by sliding over it). On Android, this is a pretty
serious problem.
Every Android phone has keys below the screen. Several, these days, have it directly
on
the screen. With that in mind, imagine pulling a striker down and then
running your thumb over one of these keys. Depending upon the key you
touch, you could either end up ending the game or landing directly on
your homescreen.
I tested the game on a Galaxy S III, which thankfully has only two
capacitive keys to worry about. While the menu button is innocent as it
has no function assigned, the back button kills the game every time. The
current version of the game has this ridiculous bug where if you press
the Back button while playing, the screen goes black after the current
level is over. That’s it. It just goes blank. Only option after that is
to end and play the game from the beginning.
Out of every five games I played, approximately three ended because I
pressed the Back button. I imagine things would be significantly worse
for those who have the keys directly on the screen, such as the Nexus
devices. I can’t imagine how the game managed to pass through testing
stages with such an enormous oversight. It almost makes the game
unplayable on Android.
There is also one feature in the game where, if a striker manages to
stop in the upper portion of the screen (remember, you can only shoot
them when they are inside the lower portion), you can shake the phone to
move it around a bit, hopefully to hit a bigger circle before the timer
runs out. Either I was doing something terribly wrong or this feature
simply does not work. I shook my phone every way possible when the icon
appeared on the screen and it did absolutely nothing. Several others
have also complained about this, which tells me it’s not me who’s doing
something wrong.
Another bug weird bug in the Android version is that you can’t adjust
the volume once the game starts. Makes me wonder if the developers
actually played the game on an Android device before publishing it.
Graphics and Sound
Along with the gameplay, the audio-visual presentation of the PUK is
another great aspect of it. The game has a very minimalistic visual
design, consisting only of orange and white colors. The screen is
predominantly orange and the circles and text are white. While it does
look very pretty the orange color can get overbearing after a while,
especially on an AMOLED display. The UI animations and design, however,
are very slick.
The music is equally cool. The continuous electronic music hums along
throughout the game, picking up pace just when things start getting
exciting while the movements and attacks of the circles are punctuated
with distorted bass notes. Like the gameplay and visuals, the music
maintains simplicity and minimalism but manages to be superb
nonetheless.
The overall audio-visual design of PUK reminds me heavily of Hundreds.
Incidentally, that game also dealt with circles and had a simple
gameplay style. One would be fooled into thinking the same developer
made both these games.
Verdict
PUK is simple, fun and pretty. At $0.99, it’s also cheap. The Android
version of the game, unfortunately, comes with a major oversight as
part of its feature list but even then the game somehow manages to be
enjoyable. If you have an iPhone then it’s a no-brainer; you have to
play this game. If you have an Android device, I’d suggest you try it
out for a while to see if you can work around the controls otherwise
refund it. Chances are, you probably won’t.
Rating: iOS: 9/10; Android: 6/10
Pros: Addictive gameplay, a thousand different levels
to play that appear in a different order every time, minimalistic yet
wonderful audio-visual presentation, inexpensive
Cons: Android version has a major design flaw, several bugs and glitches, bright orange theme can get overbearing after a while
Download: iPhone |
Android
