Spectra : don’t judge the game by the screenshot

Spectra

When I first came across Spectra I was not very impressed with it coz when you see the screenshots it looks quite boring but after receiving an email from the dev I decided to give it a go and see what it had to offer . What do you think.. did my first impression change ? ( well the title is kind of a giveaway but read on to find out )

With some basic red , blue and green lines shown in the screenshot I quickly made up my mind as this is going to be just another simple game in the marketplace, little did I know that after trying out the game my impression on the game is going to change. When you launch the game you can see the game will be showing you a tutorial on how to play in the background , you can restart the tutorial anytime using the restart tutorial text. There are two options here to start a new game or to check the online leaderboard which can be accessed by clicking on the small trophy button on the bottom right.

The gameplay is very simple there is a small cube that will keep moving from side to side and you can change the color of this cube using the 3 buttons on the left from red, green and blue. You can touch the screen to jump, the idea is to jump and keep going as high as possible. With the white colored platforms you can not go through them but with the other 3 colors you can jump through them as long as your cube is a different color, and as long as you can jump through them you can fall through them as well, the key is to make a jump then switch the color of the cube to the same as the platform below so you don’t fall down , once you fall off the screen its game over.

Now that might sound too simple, it did to me but while playing the game I kept falling off the platforms after a few jumps. I knew what to do but before I could do it I fall down and this was making me look stupid . The last time I felt this helpless was probably when I tried to do this

While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles. Now, while doing this, draw the number “6″ in the air with your right-hand. Your foot will change direction. Its almost impossible to prevent your foot from changing direction.

I wasn’t going to give up that easy and it ( Spectra ) does get more easy with practice. And this urge to get better at this kept me coming back for more of this game. The developer has included some nice bonus for doing double shift” which according to him is a challenging move when you are between two of the same color: you shift to a different color as you jump to get through the platform above you and then shift back to land on it. The game also gives visual clues when you are close to beating your high score. The white line you see is the highest session highscore (since you last started up the game). The red line is your personal best highscore (best ever on your phone). The blue line marks “hyperspeed” which is just a speed increase to make it more difficult.

There are a few issues with Spectra the most obvious one is that there is no music and sound effect which I hope the dev will include in future versions. Having a good background music is a very important factor ( for me ) when making up my mind about the game. With the controls I feel that having the Red, Blue, Green buttons on the right hand side might make it a bit more easier ( for me ), currently there is no way to switch this.

To sum it up even with some missing features this game has the potential to make you come back for more and try to beat your score on the online leaderboard and with no cost involved in downloading and playing this game , its definitely worth trying out coz the gameplay itself is quite solid but the lack of music and sound effects can be a bit boring when considering the overall gaming experience.

Spectra Gameplay Video

Spectra Screenshots

Background : here ( Had this in the wallpaper collection , dont know the source for this, if you do let us know )

Dev Info : Andrew Bunn, Twitter : @abunnz

Version Under Review : 1.1.0.0

Spectra is a FREE game for Windows Phone 7

Notes : the dev has informed us Achievements coming in next release!

Windows Phone 7 Game Rating

Scan this QRcode with Bing vision ( Hit the hardware Search button and click on the small icon that looks like an eye ) on your Phone to download the App to your phone.

Price : Free