Neon Blitz

Do you remember those scary maze Flash games that popped up around 2003? The ones where you concentrated really hard on tracing an intricate pattern through a maze only to be scared by a screaming ghost, zombie, or ghoul?

Games like that have made Neon Blitz impossible for me to enjoy. While Neon Blitz is a simple and fun steady-hand trace game, I couldn't help but wince as my eyes soaked up the bright colours and my fingers worked through the challenging trace patterns.

Thankfully, there was no monster at the end: Neon Blitz really is just a game devoted to tracing an intricate pattern through a maze of sorts.

The 'maze' in Neon Blitz is a glitzy and garish neon sign, like you might see in the window of a pub. As you trace around the pattern, the sign springs to life with colour and illumination, then emits a pleasant humming sound when completed.

Some of the more intricate patterns are unrecognisable in their gray 'off' state, and only come into focus once you complete a few of the lines.

This surprise element makes Neon Blitz fun to play, and the game does an admirable job of shuffling signs about so you rarely play through the same sequence of signs twice.

The 'blitz' element of Neon Blitz takes the form of a time constraint. Unlike Vivid Games's 2011 release Neon Mania, Neon Blitz limits you to one minute of playing time to trace over as many signs as you can.

This makes Neon Blitz a quintessential arcade-style game. Finesse and accuracy still help you to achieve a high score, but you'll want to focus your efforts on speed.

Like so many games with 'Blitz' in the title, Neon Blitz allows you to purchase special power-ups for a given round of gameplay.

These consumables don't necessarily change the way that the game plays, but some - like 'Accuracy' (which increases the game's tolerance for colouring outside of the lines) - certainly make it easier to earn a high score.

Because these power-ups are consumable, however, you have to constantly repurchase them with stars. These stars are earned at a glacial pace through normal gameplay, but can be purchased in massive quantities (50,000 - 1,500,000) for anywhere between 69p / 99c and $19.99.

These IAPs do limit the gameplay to an extent, as certain modes can only be unlocked with the expenditure of a couple of thousand stars. Of course, as Neon Blitz is a free download this is to be expected, but it's disruptive to run into the barrier nonetheless.

But that's freemium. If you're happy to either pay of grind, Neon Blitz is a bright and shiny way to pass an idle minute or two when you find yourself in need of stimulation.