Crooked Path review - A hardcore auto-runner
|
iOS
| Crooked Path

We all like a challenge. I mean, it's one of the reasons we play games - to pit our fingers against some tricky obstacles and see if we come out on top.

But if a game is too hard there's a chance you'll toss it aside before it gets a chance to sink its claws into your clammy flesh. And unfortunately that's exactly the problem with Crooked Path.

It doesn't ease you in, and while its controls are simple, you'll spend the first chunk of the game plummeting to your death over and over and over and... Well you get the idea.

Hang time

The idea here is a simple one. You're controlling a silhouette who's running along the titular path. Tap the screen and you shift your sprint 90 degrees to the right. Do it again and you shift 90 degrees to the right.

The path however is decidedly thin, and the character you're in charge of is pegging down it pretty darn fast. This leads to plenty of tragic dives into a pastel-hued abyss.

Some of your progress is saved when you die. There are buttons to push that remain pushed once you've plummeted to your doom, and stars to grab that stay grabbed after you die.

In fact death is the only way to complete everything there is to do on all of the levels. Which is fair enough, but you need to actually get to the stars and buttons, and that's where things start to go a bit wrong.

You'll spend a good chunk of time just trying to get to grips with the timing of your turns. And even when you think you've got it you're still going to die. A lot.

Death is part of the hardcore side of mobile gaming, but Crooked Path throws it at you too fast, leaving you wondering if you're doing something wrong rather than gritting your teeth and jumping back in.

Dead last

Compulsion loops thrive on progress, and you never really feel like you're making any in Crooked Path. Except downwards progress, and that's not really the point.

There's a neat idea here, but it turns into a bit of a belly flop far too quickly. This is one for only the very dedicated or the very masochistic.

Crooked Path review - A hardcore auto-runner

Crooked Path is just too difficult for its own good, and that means it won't hang around on your phone for long
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.