Much about the Shapium remains shrouded in mystery. There are only two things known about the Shapium. First, the beings need to escape and second they must not ever touch one another. Everyone who enters the Shapium must remember these two pieces of information. Once you enter the Shapium, you will experience a mind bending skill puzzle, which requires a keen eye and unwavering will to free the beings.

MythPeople

It's a shame now that I have to write something, because MythPeople have summed up the game beautifully. But, write I must. Shapium is a great game with a simple concept - "rescue" the Shapium and never, ever let them touch each other. If you do, it's game over.

Across many highly textured boards, you must slot the Shapium into the board like a jigsaw. It starts off easy enough, with one Shapium and one empty chunk with it's corresponding silhouette. The game is so intelligently designed, that you can never lose level 1 - you work out the controls and what you can do, and then you complete it and move on, where you get three more Shapium to juggle. And from then it gets progressively more difficult, with multiple Shapium that you have to keep from touching each other.

Fortunately, you can pin Shapium down with multi touch, so not only can you play solo, you can play with a friend if you want to. Or, if you're adept enough, you can lay your iPhone on a flat surface and use up to five fingers to play the game. But there's no doubt about it, even with two people Shapium is no breeze. Indeed, it can produce some frantic moments, and there's a good balance between tension and reward.

The presentation in Shapium is extremely well thought out. Once you complete a level, you have the option of either starting from level 1 or the last level you completed. High scores are never shown during gameplay for fear of overcrowding the already claustrophobic board. Instead, the game has a small notice which only pops up when you've reached a new record, as well as a score total at the end of every round. This works very well - as does the score entry and statistic tracking pages. The whole of Shapium is also beautifully animated, even the ring of doom is suitably arresting. Audio is sparse, but this isn't a bad thing - we feel music would detract from the game. Instead, Shapium play a series of chimes, which get higher pitched as more are cleared.

But whatever you make of it, Shapium works because it's completely out there, doing something different. It's instantly accessible, challenging gameplay, cryptic, almost sinister presentation and gorgeous, varied backdrops make it a pick up and play game that's hard to put down. "Salvation" has come, indeed.

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