Even more curious is the gun’s functionality. You control your avatar’s gun - his feet remained glued on top of the pyramid - by swiping your finger across the bottom of the screen, so your finger is rarely in the way of the action. ZiGGURAT’s controls are what makes it both fun and challenging. This is a rarity among iPhone games, because they typically don’t have the controls, rules, and intelligent design in order to build such a strong experience that is linked entirely to player skill and not random variables. The best thing I can say about ZiGGURAT is that my score was always consistent. They also have a well-defined plateau - a point where a player can’t improve - that would keep any arcade cabinet from leaving the Namco factory due to quality control. These two given examples both revolve around random elements that are out of the player’s control. iPhone games, more often then not, resemble the simplicity of ‘80s arcade cabinets, but rarely duplicate their depth and complexity. I understand why people like games such as Canabalt and Jetpack Joyride. The difference is in the details and until you put your hands to the game, it will be difficult to properly understand what a difference these details make. You could reduce ZiGGURAT to being yet another touch-based last stand action game. You stand stationary on top of a rectangular pyramid (or, five-dollar-word, ziggurat) and shoot down aliens until you inevitably lose. Yet, at a glance, it looks familiar and simple enough. ZiGGURAT doesn’t play like any other iPhone game. ZiGGURAT gives me all this and an endless erection that has begun to frighten me.
When it comes to games, I crave absolute control, rules that are to be learned, and the ability to improve my performance every step of the way. It all leaves me feeling empty, used, and a bit sickened in reflection. One that uses unnecessary leveling mechanics, generative elements, randomly-based variables, unlockables, and novelty controls to immediately touch the pleasure-centers of the brain, in the same way Micheal Bay or a bowl of sugar do. I hate iPhone games, but I like them in theory.Īs things stand, the iPhone is the breeding ground for a new generation of game designers, lazier than any that has come before it.
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