With Super 7, developer No Monkeys has produced a hat-trick of top quality games; well rounded and deep with long term goals and a pick up and play style that’s perfect for quick mobile sessions. Many small developers would do well to take note of how these games are produced; there’s an attention to detail here that elevates the experience beyond just a simple line drawing game. Their first game taught you the alphabet, and now Super 7 is here to teach you some arithmetic.

Super 7 gives you a slightly textured blue backdrop on which a number of numbered heptagons (seven sided polygon) appear from the edges of the screen. They run from -7 to 7; if you manage to combine positive or negative numbers to increase those values your game is over. This also conveniently erases the need for a line below the six, as a nine will never appear in the game. Games start off slowly; you’re given a couple of pairs to demonstrate how to play the game, and then it starts throwing you all sorts of curve-balls to see how you fare. Negative numbers, multipliers—heck, even having more than four numbers on the screen at once can be quite hectic.

When combined, numbers increase in size a little; it’s up to you whether you want to be greedy and go for size bonuses or simply play it safe by making quick matches and trying to line up a few in a row to get a combo bonus. The standard achievement system that we’ve come to know No Monkeys for is present here—there’s some truly absurd achievements that will take ages to get, and a variety of easier challenges including the ridiculous “more games” achievement that still elicits a smile. What is truly different is the live high score challenging that adds a rainbow ribbon across the top that inches its way over to the right as you rack up points. It isn’t the first time something like this has been done, but the way its presented makes knocking your own scores (if you’re offline) and especially other people’s scores (if you’re online via the OpenFeint service) feel very rewarding. The challenges are never too great either; the game always picks one that’s near to what your current total is. You can get a feel for this system in our gameplay video below:

As you can see, the presentation is really the star here; the bright colours look great on the device, with each numbered heptagon having its own distinctive hue that helps you to tell them apart. Form a seven and it glows brightly, lighting up the screen and releasing a flurry of particles into the background; even the lines that you draw between heptagons glow and emit particles of their own. Bell like, ambient sounds form much of the audio save for a synthesized downtempo track that works quite well with the game; although we would have preferred something even more relaxed than that. Happily, you can play your own music.

Yes, Super 7 is another line drawing game, but don’t let that stop you from heading over to the App Store to download it. The gameplay is frantic, fast paced yet thoughtful as you quickly try to work out how to make a seven just to clear out the screen, and the pacing is perfect. No game lasts for too long, which only encourages you to play the game more; indeed, I clocked just under two hours before starting this review. Like Green Fingers we think Super 7 will prove itself to be a great little game long term for when you’re out and about. We’d recommend it to anyone.

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Review by Ben Briggs, August 22, 2009

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