Apple’s iOS continues to prove a worthy gaming platform and is giving the traditional players a run for their money as well as providing another avenue for developers to sell more games. It’s a win-lose-win-win situation. The last win is of course for gamers, and Incoboto is our prize! Huzzah!
Incoboto is a clever, dark, whimsical and thoughtful game. It has the sarcastic humour of Portal 2 with the whimsy of Machinarium, and its own uniquely intriguing storyline…
You play Inco, a little boy who finds himself in a dying galaxy and on a quest to find out why it’s dying. All the suns are going out, but one surviving sun (cute little thing it is – yes it talks like a toddler) appears and assists you on your quest to try to save it and the galaxy. This galaxy was run by a monopolistic, ubiquitous corporation the products of which are everywhere and an integral part of the whole story and game play. You find clues to the fate of the galaxy on notes left by its expired denizens (that’s dead people) and on The Corporation’s sometimes malfunctioning equipment.
Ultimately it’s a physics-based puzzle game but with nice touches of mystery and humour. You get to mess around with gravity, levers and fulcrums, and cryptic messages that include hints and instructions.
You just use one finger to guide your character through a network of star gates and tiny planets in the side-scroller game. But the fact that you are moving around planetoids means you move in circles rather than side to side per se. Gravity platforms take you from planet to planet, and the star gates, powered by the energy of suns, take you to other solar systems. With that, you must feed your sunny friend with little star pieces in order for it to power the star gates. All part of the puzzle.
It’s a lot fun, very simple but intelligent, and seems to have an underlying environmental message for us right here in the real world. Pick it up in the app store for about £2.49 depending on which app store you use.
By Blakniss
