PocketFullOfApps

Portal became such a success on the consoles when it was introduced in Orange Box for the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. It even gave way to a stand-alone retail version. It took the iPhone gaming by storm when an allegedly Portal game was seen playing on an iPhone, but never sure if it was true. Now V is for Vortex, made by Jonathan Mulcahy who also brought us Z is for Zombie, just hit the App Store, a hugely-inspired game from Portal but so much different in many ways.

The Story Mode opens up with a simple comic strip featuring our unnamed protagonist waking up in an unknown and strange facility. Much to his surprise he saw a portal gun and brought it with him and the adventure to unlock mysteries begins. Freeplay Mode is where you can pick and replay any levels.

The basic goal of the game is to find each exit on each level using your portal gun that can make you teleport from place to another. You can also use this to teleport boxes to what seems a switch on the floor, when triggered will open up an exit. The controls feels awkward and too sensitive because it requires you to tilt the device to move around and like jerk the device to jump. It can work well but it just fells very loose at this game. Tapping anywhere on the screen will make your gun shoot a vortex where you can enter and be teleported to another Vortex. So, basically you must shoot 2 vortex for your entrance and exit.

The puzzle are not really mind-bending and doesn’t really require much thought to solve a level. But enough to call it as a tutorial or an appetizer for harder levels that will come in the future. Speaking of future plans for this game, the developer sited that he plans on making 18 new levels for each update until it reaches to around 100 levels and that’s already curved on stone. If the game becomes successful enough, he’ll consider making more.

The artwork for this game is rather hate it or love it. Personally, I find the game’s artstyle direction very appealing. It’s like a it was drawn by a fifth grader that is bored in his Science class. I am an artist myself so maybe that helps me to really appreciate this unique style of drawing and it really doesn’t need to be in 3D and high definition to really appreciate the visuals. The background music of the game is well-suited, it has an atmospheric, eerie sound to it that really adds mysterious to the game.

The game is not perfect. It is short (but then again, he plans on making over 100 levels), and the controls although works sometimes, can be improved to not ignite frustration. The game has a nice concept and it can be taken further to make this a really good game. At it’s current state, I still enjoyed playing this charming title and I expect it to improve thoroughly over the updates planned.

3 out of 5
Good but has a lot of room for improvement.

V is for Vortex on the App Store.

Tags: $0.99, 99 cents, 99¢, Review, V is for Vortex