Review: Wooden Labyrinth 3D
Score:
88%
While not a stand-out genre in the mobile world, the addition of accelerometers into mobile handsets has brought about the frustrating return of the marble rolling game. If you can recall the little puzzles of your childhood where you rolled a marble around a maze to get to an exit – then this is exactly the same - with even some pseudo 3D thrown in. Just don’t throw your phone against the nearest wall in frustration!
Buy Link | Download / Information Link
Developed by Elias Pietila of Qvik, this vision of the tilt game is a port from the iOS version (which picked up the Apple Design Award and has shipped millions of copies), and while it has taken some time to make the jump to Symbian, it’s here now and it's very welcome.
First things first, there is only one “funky” thing about Wooden Labyrinth, and it’s not a death laser, or magic doors, teleporters or the like. It’s a simple addition to where your ball can travel. It’s called 'jump'.
Shake your handset, or tap on the screen, and your ball will jump in the air. You can’t get over every wall, only the low slung walls, but you can get over some of them, and this adds a multi level effect to the game design - and this ability is put to good use. You can also use it to jump over holes in the ground, but the co-ordination to accelerate the ball, and jump, and have a safe landing, doesn’t always make this an easy option.
The three dimensional nature of the game is emphasised with a forced perspective trick by Pietila. When you tilt the device, not only does the effect of gravity act on the ball, you also see the walls of the maze appearing to tilt. So if you keep your eye in one place and just tilt the phone, it replicates what you would see on a physical tilting maze. It’s not only a cute touch, but this ‘tricking’ of the brain through an optical illusion means you forget the digital nature of Wooden Labyrinth and concentrate on the game.
A nice rendered view of the game grid
But it’s clearly a computer game, with all the benefits this has – it’s incredibly fast to reset - once a ball falls into a trap hole, a new one is rolled in to the start point and you are immediately back in the game (albeit right at the start of the maze, which can be infuriating). It also has a lot of different levels – something that was never available in my 'one level fits all' childhood.
And once you get past some of the simpler levels (cunningly bundled together under the “tutorial” moniker”), you find some devilish tricks, jumps, twists and turns. The skill in the little touches in the coding have carried through to the level design, and the angel that coded the game has a complimentary devil in laying everything out! If that's not enough, you can switch to an "endless" game, with computer-generated levels.
While it’s taken some time for Wooden Labyrinth to make the jump to Symbian, it’s a late party-crasher that I’m more than happy to accommodate. There’s a lot to like, it’s a simple idea, it’s presented with a lot of love and polish, and it is tremendously good value for money.
-- Ewan Spence, Feb 2011.
Reviewed by Ewan Spence at