Game Reviews

Farsh

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iOS
| Farsh
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Farsh
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iOS
| Farsh

Rolling out a rug is one of life's little incidental pleasures.

Lugging your portable carpet around on your shoulder, insouciantly plonking it down, and unfurling it with a kick brings an unlikely buccaneer spirit to interior decorating.

So the concept of controlling such a rug in abstract puzzler Farsh isn't quite as bafflingly left-field as it might initially seem.

On a roll

As with so many iOS spatial puzzlers, the goal here is very simply to get to the level exit.

You can roll your little Persian rug along each floating walkway through simple left and right virtual controls, as well as a couple of rotation commands to deal with those pesky corners.

Of course, depending on its orientation, one of the two directions you can move will always cause your rug to unfurl.

By finishing up on a coloured square, you can rotate the square itself - along with any regular blue squares you've covered - along with your rug.

Each level, then, is a single puzzle involving several flexible pivot points and lots of lateral thinking.

Cut some rug

This is a gently taxing and subtly beguiling game, aided considerably by its sparse presentation, lack of penalties or time pressure, and a soothing eastern-tinged soundtrack.

Spoiling this feeling of zen-like bliss, however, are some control and structural frustrations. The whole rotate-and-unfurl concept is fresh, but it's never quite clear enough which way your rug is facing (leading to numerous accidental unfurlings).

Similarly, the square-covering and rotating mechanic doesn't quite feel nailed-on or reliable enough. It can be a bit choosy when it decides to move for you. I also found myself constantly thinking about how the rules worked when ideally this would be crystal clear after a couple of levels.

Finally, the lack of a back-up or time-rewind command is grating - particularly once the single-use green squares are introduced, leading to numerous level restarts.

Farsh is a relatively fresh and pleasant enough puzzler, but it feels a little too stripped back and spare for its own good at times.

Farsh

A subtly beguiling puzzler that needs a little extra attention paying to its core elements to make it more than just an also-ran
Score
Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.