Iâm not a gamer. The last gaming console I owned was the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (or SNES), which gave me hours of pleasure with Yoshiâs Island (did you know you can emulate SNES games on your PC?), and thatâs after years of work on mastering Super Mario 3 on the classic NES (which you can also emulate on your PC!). These consoles marked the end of my gaming days, at least the serious ones. But my interest in gaming got piqued again when I got my iPad 3 years ago.
Granted, the iPad is no gaming console. Itâs not even meant as a gaming device, but as it turns out, I, too, couldnât find many productive uses for my tablet, so thatâs mostly what I use it for. I got addicted to Temple Run and Temple Run 2, played several Playrix games into the night, and wasted several good hours on word games, Sudoku games, Tap the Frog, Veggie Samurai, and many other such iPad time-wasters.
All these games have several things in common â" you get clear instructions, you know the rules of the game, and itâs obvious what your target is and what youâre aiming to achieve. All these rules are broken in Hundreds.
Hundreds?
Did you watch the video carefully? Thatâs the best hint youâre going to get about how to play this game. At $ 4.99, Hundreds is quite steeply priced for an iOS game, and thereâs no way to try it for free. If youâre intrigued but not sure if you want to spend this kind of money, hereâs your chance to see what itâs all about.
So youâve downloaded the game and launched it. What now? My first instinct was to look for the instructions, but there arenât any. Your only option is to dive in straight to level 1. In this level, youâll find one circle with the number 0 written in it. Tapping and holding this circle will make it change color to red and start growing. When it reaches 100, the level is done. Simple enough.
This is the basic rule of Hundreds: you need to get to a hundred. No matter how many circles you have, no matter the obstacles, your goal is to reach 100. Donât worry, you donât need to know any math for this â" each level comes with a counter that shows you how far youâve come.
Gameplay
Now that you know the basic goal of the game, itâs time to get a deeper look at gameplay. Like most games (and this is the only conventional aspect of this game), Hundreds revolves around levels you have to pass. Thereâs a beautiful level selector which you can use to choose your levels, and see a glimpse of whatâs waiting for you inside each one.
If youâve completed a level, its circle gets a bit bigger, and youâll get some stats about how much time and how many taps it took you to complete it.
Speaking of taps, Hundreds is made for touch interface, and utilizes it to the max. In fact, I donât think Iâve ever seen a game so incredibly suited for touch interface. I canât imagine this game working on any other interface.
As you progress through the levels, youâll start learning more and more rules â" and this game definitely has some strict ones. For example, as soon as you start the second level, which includes three circles instead of one, youâll discover the second rule of Hundreds: circles must not touch each other when theyâre red (theyâre red while youâre touching them and making them grow).
This gets more complicated as levels start having more and more circles, and other elements which your circles canât touch. You get the hang of each level as you try to solve it â" thereâs no help of any kind â" but itâs not something you have to rack your brains about. You just figure it out.
What Are Those Red Dots In The Level Selector?
What are they indeed! Thatâs not something youâre going to find a straight answer for. The best I could come up with is that these levels are ones you get messages after completing. The messages are cryptic in themselves, but they may start making more sense as you complete more levels. To see all the messages youâve received up till now, tap the white central circle on the Main Menu screen.
As you can see, I got a message when completing level 3, and another one when completing level 11. What do they mean? Perhaps you can tell me, because Iâm stumped.
So Is It Worth $ 4.99?
If youâre asking me, it most definitely is. With itâs relaxing music and ambiance, and its cryptic yet addictive gameplay, Hundreds has already become a challenge I canât let go of. Whatâs most impressive to me about it, aside from its simple and beautiful graphics, is how it manages to be both challenging and relaxing at the same time â" something Iâve yet to see in any iOS game Iâve tried.
Note that I only tried this game on an iPad, and an old one at that, and that the game did have a weird graphics bug once, which might have something to do with my old iPad running iOS 5. I donât know what the game is like on an iPhone, but I can only guess it would be terrific. If what youâve seen above interests you even remotely, take a deep breath and let go of those 5 dollars. You wonât regret it.
If you decide to go for it, Iâd love to hear what you thought about Hundreds. Or do you think $ 4.99 is too much for any iOS game, no matter how good?
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