Review: Lafix
Score:
68%
Following on from the huge disappointment of Pipe Mania, Lafix has popped up as my salve. It’s a very basic salve, and for me that just adds to the charm, but it does what it sets out to do (be a great little puzzle game) and is hopefully one of the first titles by Jeti to grace the Symbian platform. Yes there’s room for improvement, but unlike Pipe Mania, Lafix has the core gameplay sorted out, and made that attractive enough to keep you coming despite the flaws.
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Much like Pipe Mania, you need to guide something around a grid – but there are two differences in Lafix. The first is that rather than water, you are guiding a laser beam. That means you don’t have to worry about a million straight pieces on the game board, just the “angles” that will bend the light around a 90 degree corner. Because the second change is that rather than get a specific length of route, you need to guide the laser light from the transmitter to a receiver.
Lafix is, essentially, a very big collection of jigsaws, because there’s nothing random – all the pieces you need to get the laser from start to finish are on the board to start with. All you need to do is move them around into the right place. That’s fine with the early levels, but as you move up through the levels it gets a bit more complicated, as you have rough ground (you can’t place angles here, but the laser can pass over), some fixed angles you cannot move and walls (which will stop the laser in its tracks).
Playing the levels is easy, just touch the angles to slide them around, and a big handy button marked “fire” to switch the laser on and trace the path around the level to (hopefully) reach the receiver – where you’ll advance to the next level.
And, unfortunately, that’s it. There’s no pressure put on you as a gamer – be it as simple as the laser can only be fired incorrectly three times (a basic “life” system), a time limit (perhaps the laser overheats if it’s not fired) or some other outside condition that gets the heart racing. I think the game would benefit from some sort of ticking clock or other external stimulus on top of the jigsaw/puzzling aspect.
The great news for Jeti is that if it does decide to improve the whole game experience then it doesn’t need to fiddle with the implementation of the core concept, because that works well – it’s the bells and whistles around it that need the spit and polish. Oh and some sound would be nice, because right now this is the quietest game in the world, with no sound, no effects and no background music to speak of.
Finally, as with many applications, you’ve got the choice between an ad-supported version and a purchased “ad-free” version. If you’re interested in Lafix, I'd seriously recommend the ad-free version, not only to give a decent return to Jeti, but because the ad-supported version locks out the screen while you look at a tiny advert and wait for the ‘skip’ button to be activated after a few seconds. That delay is seriously mood-destroying when playing through the game.
Arguably a flawed implementation of an interesting game, there’s enough in Lafix for me to enjoy and recommend it to puzzle/logic fans – and to hope that Jeti looks around the rest of the marketplace to see what can be done to its game to make it even more appealing.
-- Ewan Spence, April 2011.
Reviewed by Ewan Spence at