Herschnoid is a brick breaker game which breaks away from the traditional rectangular blocks graphics and offers something new to the breakout / arkanoid fans. So does this deviation make or break this classic gameplay ? Read on to find out .

Herschnoid does look the part with 3 distinct level design Steel, Wood and Air and each of the these levels offer 16 sub-levels with its own unique designs from worms to windmills, though hardcore breakout fans might dislike this idea it was a welcome change for me, from a visual standpoint this the does look quite nice. But there are a few instance when the background of the stage is very similar to the tiles you have to break and this can create some confusion. Now on to the controls : the game offers the user 3 modes of controls

• Touch – touch the left / right hand side to move in that direction
• Slide – Touch and drag
• Sensor – Using the accelerometer

which is great but unfortunately I was not very comfortable with the default settings of the sensor and there was no way to customize this, which was a bummer. You have the option of 2 language English and German and the other usual suspects in the settings page like music, SFX, etc were all present. I do hope to see the sensor customization option added to the game in the future. There is a picture based tutorial which does a good job of getting you acquainted with the gameplay , powerups and weapons in the game.

As you complete each level the next one gets unlocked. One would expect they have to break all the blocks to get to the next level and this holds true for most part but I am sure the game automatically completed the levels with some blocks left in a couple of levels ( and no I am not talking about the left over unbreakable blocks ) , I tried to reproduce the issue but it did not happen again while i had the camera running, it was more of a random thing and only about twice. Along with breaking all the block you can try and get the 3 red gems which will give you a 3 star ( or gem ) in this case for that level.

According to the developers there are over 15 power ups. These are classified in to
Green ( the ones you want to pick up ) : larger player, extra life, extra ball, larger ball, faster ball (?), faster player, fire ball
Red ( the ones you want to avoid ) : smaller player, smaller ball, slower ball (?), slower player
Blue ( weapons ) : single cannon , dual cannon, laser, rocket launcher, remote missile

The green and red power ups effect your board or ball while the blue gives you a projectile weapon , you can stack the powerups and switch between weapons when you have access to more than one. Personally I was surprised to see that faster ball was a green powerup and slower ball was red , if it were up to me I would switch those.

Final thoughts : There is no wow factor but the game is fun if you like the breakout style games. There are a few minor quirks here and there ( lack of sensor customization, issue with certain background, etc ) but none that will prevent you from enjoying the game. There are only a limited number of levels , but the dev does mention that they have plans to add more in the future. One other suggestion I have to the dev is to support the ability to save a game if the user jumps out , so they can resume it when they jump back in. There is a trial available and its worth the try to see if you would want to get the full version which offers 48 levels in total.

Herschnoid Gameplay Video

Background : retroist

Herschnoid Screenshots

Version Under Review : 1.3.0.0

Website : Skuami Studio; Facebook ; check out what gamers are saying about it in our Gaming Forum

There is a trial version available and the full version is available for $0.99, In the trial mode you can play the first five levels.

Our Rating for Herschnoid

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