Rune Legend Windows Phone

Fit all the shapes in the spaces. A statement which accurately describes this game. Perhaps more significantly, a statement which it wouldn’t be unfair to reduce the game down to: it really is that simple a release.

Presented with a row of blocks, you have to cram them all into a cavity. The challenge is in working out where to place them, and in what orientation; starting with small areas to fill with only a handful of pieces, the game builds up in scale, leading to larger areas with more pieces, making it ever harder to plan in advance where to place them. It gradually becomes a real challenge, and just as it gets into its stride… it stops. Faced with a system easy to extend – designing levels to fit the small range of blocks on offer shouldn’t be too hard – the developers chose instead to focus on a small number of levels. Which would be fine, were they particularly well-designed, but as it stands they all feel rather generic.

The oddest thing is that the developers fleshed out the game with a theme which seemed perfect for integrating into the system – it has you ostensibly taking on the role of the Norse god Odin and discovering runes in order to gain wisdom and power, so of course the shapes that you make match the runes you’re discovering, yes?

Well, no, actually. Instead, the shapes seem arbitrarily chosen, bearing no relation to the rune discovered at the end of the level. It’s a baffling oversight: it’s not as though the Futhark runes would be hard to replicate. But no, there’s no relationship between the two, making even that lightest dusting of narrative seem oddly removed from the game.

(26/01/2012 – correction: on speaking with the developers it’s become clear that I missed a link between the shapes and the runes – the shapes are, in fact, representative of the runes’ meanings, rather than replicating their shape – this is sometimes obscured by a rune’s meaning being hard to represent visually, or by information being lost in translation, but the links are there)

The game does add a few extras at you: an extra set of levels shared between two ranked modes – one by time taken, one by the number of actions (the latter of which is flawed, as rotations are counted as actions, and blocks are randomly oriented at the start of the level – meaning that it can be impossible to get full marks on a level if the blocks have been oriented unfavourable); a ‘free game’ mode which throws a random level at you; a hotseat multiplayer option which is identical to the free game mode, only it asks you to hand your phone to a friend when you’re done so they can try the same level, then compares your times; and a frankly awful ‘bugsquasher’ mode, which sees you moving blocks around the screen in order to squash passing inspects.

Even with these extras, the game feels empty. Completing the Story Mode is unlikely to take more than an hour, and the extra challenges may add another hour to that, but for £1.99 it feels a little short. Which wouldn’t be so bad if it was a particularly well-designed or unique game, but it isn’t. This isn’t a bad game by any means, it’s just not particularly inspiring, and somewhat low on content. The story isn’t tied to the gameplay in any meaningful way, even though it could be (though it must be said that the myth of Odin does provide for an entertaining enough distraction, accompanied by some half-decent images as it is), and in all it doesn’t make for the most exciting of additions to the Marketplace.

Rune Legend Gameplay Video

Rune Legend Screenshots

Version Under Review : 1.3.0.0

There is a trial version available and the full version is available for $2.49, There is also a limited trial version, revealing the first part of story mode and several game boards from time trial mode.

Our Rating for Rune Legend

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$2.49

Rune legend

Developed by:

Dreadlocks Ltd

This game has been tagged as: $2.49Dreadlocks Ltdpuzzle gameRating – GoodRune legend

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Article written by wiper

I've been gaming since I first played Chess on the Amstrad PCW, and have never looked back. The advent of smartphones has given rise to an exciting new world of possibilities for gaming, and I've been particularly enamoured with Windows Phone 7 thanks to its integration with Xbox Live, and the minimum specifications Microsoft had for the handsets meaning that all of them are capable gaming devices. Also, because the OS is just so damned sexy. When I'm not playing or reviewing games, I have a variety of other interests and hobbies, not least ancient literature and history, subjects in which I hold both a bachelor and master of arts; so if you've any questions about which of the ancient Greek novels is the best,* you know who to ask! *Lucian's True History

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