double drop

Developer Gerard Rallo deftly sidesteps the biggest potential problem with his new iOS game by priming us in the game's description that it's meant to look overwhelmingly confusing.

So, thusly disarmed, we delve into a game review expecting not to fully understand what's going on. Welcome to double drop.

Inspiration for this reflex-based minimalist title apparently comes from late nights spent in Tokyo arcades, watching people feverishly pouring coins and balls into pachinko machines. And those gameplay mechanics are, for the most part, very visible within double drop.

Although it might not look like a pachinko at first glance, it operates in a very similar manner. You send balls rolling up from the bottom of the screen in an effort to collect floating triangles swimming about the field, and use the ball to transport them off the top of the display. Simple enough.

To add a bit of challenge there are all sizes of circles that replace the pachinko's pins, getting in the way of your balls (careful now) and stopping them from delivering the triangles and awarding you points. If you run out of balls, it's Game Over.

Although this might not sound particularly different from a typical pinball or pachinko-styled game, the visuals do distance it considerably. Double drop opts for the popular minimalist, vector-esque aesthetic accompanied by generative audio that creates a unique atmosphere around the gameplay.

A newcomer would be unlikely to draw a quick comparison to pachinko, or most any other type of game, for that matter.
Co-operative confusion Further adding to the chaos is the option for a two-player game, with another human or against the game itself. When two of you are attempting to fire shots across the screen from opposite sides of the device, the already intense barrage of flashing lights and exploding geometry becomes almost fit-inducing, and it's here that the full sensory assault of double drop is revealed.

The dev's point, according to the game's official blurb, is that the furiously played arcade games he'd seen in Japan were pretty much impossible to follow if you weren't at the controls. If his goal was to recreate this dazzling confusion, he's more than succeeded.

Even when you're playing, understanding everything that's going on is nigh on impossible. But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the cacophony.

Indeed, double drop is incredibly entertaining, even if it's not entirely playable 100 percent of the time. Some will view this as a significant part of the game's charm, while others will quickly give up on the confusion, so you might want to mentally adjust its score to match your probable reaction.

For us, the chaos often goes a little too far, turning the game into one of luck as much as skill, but it's impossible not to be mesmerised by its lashing of austere style and unrelenting action.

You'll know from this gameplay video whether double drop is for you or not, and if it grabs your attention at all you're definitely advised to give it a go.