Strata Will Challenge Your Mind While Pleasing Your Eyes [Review]

By

Strata

Strata, a puzzle game by developer Graveck, has been out for a few months now, but I only recently stumbled across it. Like FlowDoku, which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago, it’s a deceptively clever title that uses a couple quick rules to create complex tasks for players to solve.

Strata by Graveck
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $0.99

The rules of Strata are simple: You receive a square grid between 2×2 and 6×6 boxes in size, and you have to place colored ribbons across every row and column. Some boxes have colored squares in them, and the top ribbon on that square must be the same color. That sounds way more complicated than it is, but it makes sense once you’re looking at it.

And you should look at it because it’s really, really pretty.

Strata
Stacking and weaving the ribbons creates some neat patterns — even if you do it wrong. Which I didn’t in this case, but trust me.

I don’t even know how to round out my word count on this one: It’s a good-looking, challenging game with a simple hook. It requires a kind of thinking that I’m not used to, but once I’d done a few puzzles, I could feel it all starting to make sense, and the levels got a little easier.

It’s a deceptively clever title that uses a couple of quick rules to create complex tasks for players to solve.

But then the game added a bigger grid or another color of ribbon, and I had to start the learning process over again. But then I caught on again, and so on. Strata made me feel like I was always learning and improving, and its difficulty curve stayed just enough ahead of my abilities that the levels were challenging without feeling impossible.

So short version: It’s pretty, and you should play it.



StrataGame Name: : Strata
The Good: It has a great art style and an interesting puzzle mechanic.
The Bad: I got a headache playing it once, but that might be unrelated.
The Verdict: Puzzle lovers who like pretty things would do well to download this game right now.
Buy from:App Store

[rating=game4]

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.