Game Reviews

Edge Extended

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Edge Extended

My knowledge of geometry doesn't really extend beyond successfully negotiating a square wooden peg into the correct hole on a toddler's toy table, so it was with trepidation that I first started up Edge Extended.

The less numerically challenged among you might think that a puzzle-platformer based on the thinky principles of navigating a box through a hole filled arena would be straightforward.

But Edge Extended takes those principles and runs with them, offering up some stark challenges along with some palpable frustrations.

Square-ware

The aim in Edge Extended is to get your flashing neon cuboid from one end of each isometric block-built stage to the other. Each of the game's stage's is suspended in a void of empty space, meaning one wrong move and you're hexahedron will fall off the edge and you'll have to try that bit of the stage again.

The challenge is bumped up with a glorious variety of traps and unique mind games, where the levels shift and morph mid-play.

These traps can range from the evil villain-esque classic disappearing floor to some pretty swish rollercoaster-like moving platforms. One early grin-inducing stage sees your disco brick riding a robot made of boxes.

While reaching the end of each stage will be your initial aim, the scoring system means that there's always room for improvement.

You might feel like a genius having traversed some impossible pitfall by 'edging' (balancing your cube on its edge for a few seconds) but when you're handed a D rating you'll feel inclined to go back and try again.

Racing²

One way to up your score is to collect the flashing dots scattered about the stages, but the ever-more thrilling way to boost pointage is to simply finish the level in a quicker time.

Not that that will be simple.

Excellent level design in Edge Extended forces you to think carefully, particularly as your cube will always need a block's worth of space behind it in order to move forward.

The beauty, and the difficulty, of the stages comes from predicting where your block will need to be in order to move forward and working out how to get it there.

The sense of achievement when picking up an A rating on a particularly difficult stage could be bottled and sold as motivational juice to depressed geometry professors.

One area in which Edge Extended falls down here on Java, as compared to other versions, is that there's no stage map, meaning that some areas turn into exercises in trial and error rather than the brain-churning Penrose stairs of the initial versions.

But, while it might miss the map that featured in the smartphone edition, Edge Extended on Java still offers an intuitive brain teaser and a compelling argument to stop pelting your maths teacher in the back with soggy charleys (or, indeed, spit wads - hello America!).

Edge Extended

Edge Extended might sorely miss the map that graced its smartphone original, but it's still a wonderful example of logic mixed with incentivised tension and some inspired level design
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Matt Sakuraoka-Gilman
Matt Sakuraoka-Gilman
When Matt was 7 years old he didn't write to Santa like the other little boys and girls. He wrote to Mario. When the rotund plumber replied, Matt's dedication to a life of gaming was established. Like an otaku David Carradine, he wandered the planet until becoming a writer at Pocket Gamer.