If a developer came up to us and asked how you made a game more addictive, we would simply show them Starball. The game loads quickly and the time spent starting a new game is tiny. Just hit the retry button. It’s hard to believe, but that obvious combination of instant gratification and a way to play without having to go through several other steps feels right. For gaming in general, we shouldn’t have to work to get another round in, but some game developers will make you jump through hoops just to play another round.

It is precisely this feature that makes this title so addictive. We can see why the developers have emblazoned “Simply Addicting” on the title screen even if it is completely unnecessary.

The gameplay speaks for itself—yes it is a dot avoiding game, but it is also only 59p. That is the perfect price point for such a game, and you’ll find yourself hooked not on the graphics or general style of the game but the controls which feel super slick. The accelerometer based control scheme can even be calibrated to your liking, a sore point with many similar games that cannot be calibrated; forcing you to hunch over your device in an uncomfortable manner. The three difficulty modes don’t really add much to the experience given that the difficulty is always increasing, so these could potentially be dropped in favour of more environments.

You avoid the red dots to collect the stars and along the way obtain power ups to make the game easier. Some don’t do much, like shrink your ball or slow down time, some are moderately useful like stopping time for a brief moment but others allow you to become invincible, destroy a small radius of dots around you or even clear the screen. The power ups come thick and fast but what you get is completely random, and they all share the same icon so there’s not a lot of strategy in saving useful power ups on the board. The strategy comes in using power ups like the aptly named Invinciball to destroy as many dots on screen as you can rather than using it as a shield.

Again, it isn’t the presentation you’ll love, but the gameplay. Sure, it has some nice things like save game state and great sound effects that play over the top of your music but it isn’t a looker like Labyrinth 2. But nor does it have to be, and you’ll appreciate spending that 59p when you’re at a bus stop and have a few moments to waste. Make sure you get on the bus though.

Media gallery

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More by this developer

Rabid Gophers, C

Review by Ben Briggs, March 15, 2010

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