Good Game Get! Eliss
Eliss is a multi-touch iPhone/iPod touch game that destroys any notions that the iPhone and iPod touch aren’t relevant video game systems.
The game is much easier played than it is described, but simply it’s a game about controlling different colored planets with your fingers, keeping them from colliding with one another, and turning them into supernovas.
On top of that you have to deal with splitting and combining them with fluid multi-touch controls. You also have a health meter and that decreases when you collide planets (or let them collide) and when other sources of danger affect your planets, thus killing your health, and decreasing the size of the planet making it difficult to create supernovas and stardust which can be swiped to regain health. The goal is reached when you create a predetermined number of supernovas.
If that sounds simple, it is. On paper. The difficulty develops when the game forces your multi-task abilities into over-drive forcing you (if you want to win) to use up to three or four fingers at a time (put your device on a table-top for best play) to control various colors of super novas, especially when a black hole is trying to pull them into one another. It’s challenging, but oh so satisfying when you complete a level that you’ve failed at numerous times, and like any good game, it rewards you with satisfaction when you best it with knowledge learned from failure.
Graphically the game is something behold with its modern minimalist and retro appeal. The color pallette that creator Steph Thirion developed for the game is also awesome. The graphic design from the interface to the GUI to the actual gameplay is top notch and solid throughout. Not only is Eliss an achievement in incredible and original gameplay, it further innovates games as art, and the wonderful music contributes to that as well.
You’ll love the game if you play the lite (free!) version, and if you do so happen to most likely dig it, you should pick it up and support the incredible yet tiny (compared to most of the shit on the App Store) indie game movement on the iPhone OS.
If you have an iPod touch or iPhone, you have nothing to lose.
Trust me. Eliss is pure mobile magic.