There are games that are weird and there are games that have no rhyme or reason to them. These games are few and far between, but when a gamer finds one they usually have no idea what it’s about.
Subconscious for iOS really confused me. In the beginning of the game, there is a first person movie sequence of some guy driving, then all of a sudden he says “ouch my head.” He did not bump his head or get into an accident, so it made little sense.
After the movie sequence game play starts. The player controls a brain and has to navigate through obstacles and get the brain to a pipe, which is the end of that level. Some levels are timed and each has their own obstacle. After completing a level there is a little clip of the guy opening doors or traveling on a dirt road. I’m still not sure what those clips are about. I am going to guess that possibly the guys conscious life is shown in the clips and the gameplay is his subconscious, or maybe it’s the reverse. I suppose it doesn’t really matter.
The controls are challenging. The player holds the screen to make the brain move forward and turning the iPhone turns the brain. To move backwards you hold the screen with two fingers. When the player let’s go of the screen the brain continues to move making it difficult to maneuver around obstacles. Turning the brain while moving is also difficult.
The graphics for subconscious for iOS are in a 3D top-down view. The levels are a small area blocked in by what seems to be brainstems.
A positive for this game is that it uses a lot of the gyroscopic functions of the iPhone as well as the touch screen. Not many games have this, although that maybe due to the difficulty of leaning controls like that. Some people don’t like to move their phone all around. Another positive is that the graphics also look really good.
A big problem with the game is that the brain keeps moving when the player let’s go to stop. As I said before, this makes turning almost impossible with any accuracy. You’ll end up hitting a bunch of the walls. The levels that are timed are particularly challenging because of this, as you will have the added distraction of the timer ticking down while you are quite literally wracking (or wrecking) your brain.
I play a lot of mobile games and am confident in my skills, so I don’t think the difficulty is with my learning curve. I think there are actual control issues that will frustrate the average casual gamer.
My final issue with the game is with the movie clips. Perhaps the developer is trying to tell a story with the addition of the clips, but if so, it’s lost on me. I didn’t get it. Having to watch those confusing little movies between levels after struggling with obvious control issues was very trying.
Subconscious for iOS earns 2.5 out of 5 GiN Gems.