Some titles just sound cool and grab your attention right away. Gravity Sling is one of those titles. I only first heard about it yesterday. But still I managed to play through the whole 15 free levels to get the review done today. See the level of dedication I bring to the table here at Gamers Daily News?

Gravity Sling was made at the Game Jam a 12-hour iPhone game programming event held in September at the Denver 360iDev conference. It’s also the first game from that event to be released and was a collaborative effort from a group of Denver-based devs including Riptide who released the title.

In the game you have to use the gravity wells of planets and moons to get your astronaut safely back to his ship which looks a lot like the Space Shuttle. Wouldn’t want to incur the wrath of NASA by actually saying that in the game of course. The controls are super simple. Give your astronaut a projectory and force vector. That means point him in a direction with a certain amount of thrust, I was channeling a Rocket Scientist there for a second.

There is nothing really astounding about this game and often you will find yourself in an eternal loop like an old Spirograph from my childhood (pop culture ref #4 - see photos). Now I played with that old Spirograph for hours on end making all kinds of cool drawings. I’ve also found myself staring at the screne as Gravity Sling did the same thing (thanks for the nostlagia guys!).

But the point of the game is not to make cool patterns and stare aimlessly at them, it’s to get your astronaut home and to do so you’ll need a delicate touch which is sometimes a problem. As with most touch screen games, your finger gets in the way when you need to aim. I found myself using stars on the background as reference points in my quest to get the best score possible.

The game gives you points for distance traveled (they should include a reverse mode to shortest distance traveled as well I think) and the higher the better. I’ve now topped the charts on several levels or am second to PyroMonkey (one of the game devs I’m sure). One of the other drawbacks about the game is that it is often fire and forget. You interact at the very beginning of the level and then just sit an watch while it does its thing. Now remember, the game is free (99 cents for the extra 30 levels) so this is nothing major. However, some sort of further interaction in the levels and perhaps a variety of astronauts with variable weights or other aspects might have given the game some further expansion of gameplay

The game itself is free and comes with 15 levels. But you will quickly burn through them and want more. So you can buy up an additional 30 levels for a whopping 99 cents! How cool is that? Well I did so and have been playing those levels for over an hour already therefore value to cost ratio is high. It’s a cool idea and a cool game. It will certainly make you want to keep going back for one more level or one more higher score which is what gaming is all about sometimes. If you love puzzles and logic problems, you’ll love this game.

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