Reflexions

Typical – you wait ages for a game about bouncing an orb off a series of mirrors and then two come along (almost) at once.

Initially, Reflexion seems to owe a debt to Jeff Minter’s Deflex, though YoYo Games’s effort was probably conceived before the latter hit the App Store.

Either way, it’s the polished, big budget Armageddon to Deflex’s cheaper, more personal Deep Impact – at least if the world had been under threat from a gigantic camelid.

The object is to rotate mirrors to reflect your ball of light around each level, avoiding killer red spindles – how terrifying! - while collecting all the diamonds in the vicinity to unlock the exit.

A single tap sets the orb in motion - likewise, a touch is enough to rotate your mirror from 45 degrees to 315 or vice versa. If you’re clever, you can set some in place before you start, but the vast majority of levels force you to make well-timed adjustments while the ball is travelling.

That makes it less relaxing than the App Store description would suggest - not least as the hazards pile up on later levels and one wrong move is enough to dissolve your glowing ball – but it’s more instantly understandable than the initially inscrutable Deflex.

It looks beautiful, too, with a crisp neon HD aesthetic that makes the most of Retina displays. The sharp visuals combine with gentle chimes and shuffling beats to distract you from the frantic mirror tapping.

Eventually, they help you get into the right mindset – slow and steady often wins the race. The less you panic, the more likely you are to hit upon the solution, rather than hurriedly sending your orb into the deadly spokes of doom.

Such mistakes will occur from time to time, however, and it’s disappointing to find that the mirrors reset to their default positions after every try.

It's particularly annoying on the occasions you’ve painstakingly arranged them into position ready for just two or three taps along the way.

Some levels position the mirrors a little too closely. Should you need to quickly tap a mirror in a tight space, you can easily end up moving the wrong one, leading to a restart that can ruin a promising run.

Upon completing a level you’re rewarded with one to three stars depending on how many moves you took, the total time taken, and the number of resets required.

It demands repeat tries as you attempt to find the most efficient route, and it’s quite a challenge to emerge with all three stars.

There’s a decent sense of progression through the game’s 40 levels, with portals and other introductions we won’t spoil here that bring with them a solid sense of progression.

It’s all very smartly designed, if not quite as refreshingly different after Deflex. A decent game in its own right, Reflexion just lacks the personal touches (and those gorgeous piano chimes) that earned Minter’s game one mark higher than the score you see below.