Perfect Balance: Harmony, a popular Flash game where the goal is to balance various objects without toppling, was released in the app store by ttursas at the end of April. Similar in concept to games like Topple, Perfect Balance: Harmony eliminates Topple’s timed, arcade style of play for a more patience-focused, cerebral experience.

Each level presents you with one or more stationary objects in the playing field. A set of moveable, stackable objects reside above a dotted line, including circles, squares, triangles, and other oddly-shaped pieces. One at a time, you move a piece to the playing area, attempting to balance them on the stationary object(s). Once placed, a piece cannot be moved again. Pieces will either remain in place, shift position, or slide off of the playing field entirely, resulting in failure and requiring a retry. Success requires all pieces to be placed and balanced for at least one second. The balanced pieces will form a solid, white mass, indicating that the task has been successfully completed.

Gameplay was smooth and polished. The pieces react to forces like gravity and momentum in a natural way. If a placed piece is not properly balanced, it will begin to tip toward the heavier side. There is a small window of time during which you can place other pieces to try to offset this unbalance or to “wedge” pieces in a position where balance can be maintained. There are multiple solutions to each level.

Graphically, the game looks simple. Backgrounds are single-colored, sometimes textured. The blocks employ a similar style, with specific colors for each unique block type. There is a subdued, dream-like soundtrack that can be replaced with your own music, if preferred. Controls are dead simple, too. Touch and drag a piece from the top of the screen and release to place in the playing area. While touching the piece, tap the screen to rotate it into the desired position. The options menu allows you to select the positioning of the touched block in relation to your finger, so that you won’t block your view when placing the piece. A menu button and retry button are always available along the bottom of the screen.

Currently, there are 80 levels in the game, each unlockable by completing the previous level. We do not believe that ttursas will be releasing more levels for Perfect Balance: Harmony, as they are currently awaiting the approval of Perfect Balance: Inferno, and the subsequent release of Perfect Balance 2. Given the lack of upcoming updates and the relative ease with which the existing levels can be completed (we were halfway through the game within an hour), Perfect Balance: Harmony appears perfectly priced at $0.99. Puzzle fans will delight with this 5-Dimple gem.

Perfect Balance: Harmony gets our AppSmile 5-Dimple rating:

Video by ttursas