DivCircle is a personal game about trying to fit into society when you feel different to everyone else
Keep in line
It's rare that we get personal games on iOS, and even rarer that they blend interaction with storytelling in a meaningful way.
So DivCircle, a game that achieves this much, certainly deserves some recognition.
It was created by Amidos Games for the Arabic Game Jam 2014, and then expanded upon. The theme of the jam was "invisibility," which Amidos brings a personal spin to.
"The game is about diversity and feeling different from society and trying to hide all the time," developer Ahmed Abdel Samea told us.
The game starts with the screen split horizontally by two bold panels of colour, one black and the other white. There's a statement in the middle that reads:
"You are different but afraid to stand alone. So go on, touch the screen and rotate, so you can blend with others."
When you do touch the screen, the two panels of colour rotate in unison. But there's an inner circle that doesn't, and which is controlled by you.
Your job is to rotate that inner circle so that it stays aligned with the rest of the screen, also gaining a score. If you don't, then the sound of people gossiping rises, while the screen fades slowly to white.
When you do fail, encouraging messages written by co-developer Talha Kaya appear. These further marry the story of trying to fit in with the challenging rotational play.
Combine this with the gentle piano music (and, later, angry guitars) provided by Ben Burnes, and you get a small yet poignant game.
You can download DivCircle for free on the App Store [download] and Google Play [download].
