Mimicking the stark neon silhouettes, distortions and effects of geoDefense, Spirit takes a much more different focus in its gameplay.

Like many line drawing games, your goal is not to touch other objects directly; instead you need to draw a complete circle (it doesn’t have to be exactly circular either) around an area of space that enemies occupy. You do this simply by drawing on the screen with your finger. Combo bonuses apply if you get more than one enemy inside this vortex that you create, and if you’re fast enough you can chain multiple vortexes together and receive a bonus for linking them together.

Interspersed between the main stages of Spirit are some really good bonus rounds that allow you to touch the red and gold coloured orbs, and only give you 30 seconds to rack up points. If you ensnare red orbs you lose 100 points but gain 100 points (at least initially, these increase as you progress further on in the game) for the gold ones, so it’s advised not to draw a massive screen filling vortex to clear them all.

Truly, it is one fantastically simple game with enough nuance to keep you hooked. As you can tell from the gameplay trailer above, it is full of visual effects such as rippling explosions, glowing neon forms and between stage transitions that look like miniature interstellar warps. The whole playing area changes its colour every so often to stay fresh, and the background music and sound effects do an amazing job of tying the whole package together.

For 59p, or even its regular price, Spirit is a great value. Not only are you getting a really good arcade title with slick controls, but it’s also extremely well presented; the only downside is that it doesn’t offer online high scoring, but that will be addressed in the next iteration. But if you need proof that indies can produce casual games on a par with big name studios then this is it.

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Spirit HD, B

Review by Ben Briggs, June 22, 2010

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