Gravity Block is available in two different versions on the App Store, but both the iPad and iPhone version cost 99¢ and yet don’t have any unique features to tell them apart. We think that the game would be better sold as one title that supported both devices, as it’s truly difficult to recommend one over the other as they are now.

This is because of the awkward control scheme which is tolerable on the iPhone but falls apart on the larger screen. You have to tap the edges of the screen to change the gravity, which just doesn’t feel intuitive unless you use an iPhone or iPod touch. We think a better scheme would have been either to change the gravity to the direction in which you swiped, anywhere on the screen or to have had a virtual directional pad in the bottom left corner that highlighted the current direction.

In essence you’re stuck with an awkward control scheme on the iPad which otherwise is the better game with puzzles displayed at a higher resolution, or you have to work with the smaller screen of the iPhone which is a better fit for the control scheme that the developer chose. It’s a tough call which one to pick, but overall we think the iPhone version performs the best, as the later puzzles need you to change gravity quickly multiple times.

This title is basically part maze, part platform game. You have to navigate a block to the finishing star simply by switching gravity to one of the four sides of the screen, letting the block react to its powerful attractive force. Obstacles include coloured barriers that need to be triggered by a switch to disappear; walls that disintegrate after a few seconds when you touch them; small circles that are instant death on contact; warp vortexes; conveyor belt like platforms that move you in a certain direction; and walls that appear and disappear on a timer. They make for some fun puzzles with a good amount of variation; we especially liked the secondary challenge of finishing the level with the least amount of gravity switches possible.

The easiest way to finish a puzzle is to go the obvious route and try to accomplish it in the total number of moves, but you can also up the difficulty by yourself if you go for breaking the par record. The game doesn’t try to put pressure on you either way, so some levels have multiple paths to completion; we think this is a fantastic addition.

The presentation is superb overall; we really like the retro-minimalist styling of Gravity Block, and overall Playsteria did a great job with the music and effects of the game too; some sharp sound effects let it down in places though. The only other negative we can find is that there’s no information in the game, app description or website about the extra level packs that you can buy for 99¢ each; if each contain an additional 40 levels then fantastic, but we need to know these details!

If the control scheme were fixed for the iPad (it suits the iPhone better) we’d definitely recommend that you download Gravity Block HD; it’s good as it is but it just needs a few final tweaks to get it working even better.

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