Quick Look: Enigma for iPhone
Enigma is a perfect name for this game. Not because it’s challenging or because it makes you think. The real riddle is why anyone would want to play it. Lack of instructions, visual blandness and no audio at all are just some of the issues Enigma contends with. It may sound like I’m being pretty harsh here, but now I’ll back up my sentiments.
You launch the game and you’re taken right to the game board. No splash screen or anything. If you recognize the layout of the board and / or are familiar with the inspiration, you’ll realize this is a Mastermind clone. If you’re not familiar with Mastermind and you haven’t really read the App Store description then good luck, because there are no in-game instructions. Just in case you’re wondering, I’ll give you a brief rundown of how the game is played. You have somewhere between four to six slots to fill, depending on the level you choose. You also have a certain number of guesses, depending on which level you’ve chosen. The higher the level, the more guess you get. So what are you guessing? What goes in the slots, of course.
Discover The Sequence
To the left of the game board are somewhere between 6 and 8 pegs, again depending on skill level chosen. To fill the slots you click on a slot in the first available row, then click on one of the pegs to the left. Up until you “check” the correctness of a given row you can change the combination of pegs as much as you want. Once you check your answer, which is accomplished by clicking the icon of two pegs in the menu panel (a check would have made much more sense), the game will tell you how many you got right, and then go to the next row. This is one part that confuses me. There is a second set of slots on the right side of the screen, and they will be filled with white, grey or no pegs when you check your answer. The white are for “right” answers, but I can’t determine if it means the pegs are in the correct position or if you just have two pegs of the right color in the row, or what’s going on. This is where instructions would come in really handy.
Basically, you keep guessing sequences of pegs until you either get the sequence right or you run out of rows to fill in. Or, like in my case, you just quit the game. Without knowing what exactly the indicators on the right hand board mean, it’s really difficult to know how to win the game. The App Store claims that this is 6 games in one, but what that really means is that there are six difficulty levels which change the size of the board and number of peg colors to choose from, as well as whether you want to allow duplicates in the sequence or not. Personally, calling that “six games in one” is a bit misleading as far as I’m concerned.
Now if the game’s presentation was good, I might be willing to muddle through and try to determine what the “correctness” indicators mean. Unfortunately, it’s not. Beyond the fact that there is no help, the menu system is ridiculous. The icons don’t do a great job of representing their tasks, and because of the small space allotted for things you actually have to click a button to get the second half of the menu. The sad part is all the second menu does is let you change the look of the game, so why couldn’t that be in the options screen? The game itself is nothing special to look at. The backgrounds are fine except that they are mostly covered by the board anyway. Some of the tile sets for the pegs are nifty, but nothing really wowed me. You can also change the color of the board for what that’s worth, but personally I felt the overall look of the game was a bit amateurish. There are no sound effects or music. You can play your own music, which I actually decided to take advantage of for once, but if you don’t pick enough songs the music will just stop in the middle of the game. Guess they don’t believe in looping playback.
I’m trying to think of a single reason I can recommend this game, but nothing comes to mind. If you’ve never played Mastermind before, you can probably find a free clone on the internet. If not, maybe check for one in the App Store itself. If you’re really desparate to play, try tracking down the original board game on eBay. Whichever route you go, it will probably be better than Enigma.
Final Verdict: Not Recommended
App Store Link
App Shopper Link
[Note: image courtesy of App Shopper]
Tags: Clickgamer, Enigma, Eric Pankoke, iPhone, Puzzle Game, Quick Look, review, technobrains
