Eliss Infinity is dedicated to its style - so much so that even scrolling through the menus feels like an adventure. It's never esoteric, but it makes you work for the snatches of knowledge and understanding that it offers.
And that unwavering stance is matched in the gameplay. It's the same multitouch, stretch and split core as the original game, refined a little, and with the edges smoothed down.
But it's still tough, it still punishes any lapse in concentration, and it'll still make you howl with rage a lot of the time.
A circle is infiniteThe game is basically about getting rid of circles. Coloured wheels appear on the screen, and you need to slot matching coloured circles into them. But the circles need to be the right size as well, or they'll just hover over the wheels and make them disappear.
You split and connect the circles by pinching and stretching with your fingers, swiping them around the screen to drop them into position. The spoked wheels turn up far less frequently, leaving you with a screen filled with different coloured circles waiting to disperse.
But if two shapes of different colour ever touch then the screen berates you with a flash of red and you lose a chunk of your energy bar. Once all of that has dwindled away, which can happen in double quick time if you're not careful, it's Game Over.
The big addition this time around is the titular mode, an endless run of orbs and wheels that gets frantic quickly and punishes the unwary with sudden and spectacular failure.
There are spinning terrors that smash your circles, new colours dropped in without warning, and the ever-present knowledge that whatever you've got on screen is going to need breaking up or joining together when the next wheel appears.
Sort ofMuch like the original, Eliss Infinity is a tough ask once you've made your way through the first few stages. It might look casual at first glance, but this is a game that demands concentration and rapid fingers, and delights in your panicked, miserable ends.
If you didn't like the first Eliss, then it's unlikely you're going to get on well with this sort-of sequel, but if you're looking for another blast of rich, demanding gameplay, this is a step up in pretty much every respect.