EVAC, a sort of retro, Pac-Man-inspired arcade game from Hexage, is now available from the app store. Featuring neon mazes and strategic, fast-paced gameplay, EVAC is poised to catch on with gamers both young and young at heart.
EVAC Pros:
- Beautiful neon style
- Terrific soundtrack
- Strategic, fast-paced gameplay
- Global leaderboards
- Great level design
EVAC Cons:
- Controls have slight learning curve
- No social gaming network integration and no achievements
It is easy to see where EVAC draws its inspiration from, despite the absence of the famed pellet-chomping, ghost-avoiding, fruit-swiping friend. Playing as a pink square, you take sage advice from an old yellow box known as Crampos, who assists you in foiling the plans of evil genius Shadowbox and his army of red square minions. There are 24 levels in all, with a steady difficulty ramp that slowly introduces new elements with each new locale. Your goal is to consume all of the dots spread throughout the maze, which will unlock the exit. The red squares patrol throughout the levels, searching for intruders which it will recognize if you enter into their line of sight at close range. The first stages offer little in the way of options while wending your way through the board. They are simply an exercise in using the controls for a fast getaway. As you progress, you are introduced to moving blocks that hold down pressure plates, hidden rooms, spikes, force fields, security alarms, shock power-ups, ghost power-ups, and even the deadly Aura power, which will destroy any red squares in its path.
Collecting the dots not only gets you closer to opening the exit, but it also increases your score multiplier by 0.1x per dot. Fast play will keep the multiplier high, which can lead to a huge point gain if you can maintain a high multiplier until the end of the level. The multiplier slowly decreases when you stop collecting, so finding an efficient path that maximizes collection time and minimizes hiding and moving along paths without dots is crucial to achieving high scores. Your multiplier is reset if you come into contact with a red square. Unlike Pac-Man, you don’t get reset to your starting position when you touch an enemy. Instead, you continue right where you are and the level is only reset if you suffer three touches before finding the exit. When you do reach the exit safely, you earn 1,000 points times your multiplier as a bonus.
Graphically, the game has a stellar neon look that we find very appealing. Level design gets quite complex, mixing in sokoban-like puzzle aspects, as well as stop-and-go tactics to avoid spike traps and other elements. You cannot view the entire board at once, so you are unable to plan out how to get to that elusive last dot, instead causing you to rely on exploration and deft maneuvers to avoid detection and destruction while searching for your target. The game has a clean, crisp look that maximizes the play space while minimizing screen clutter. The screen top offers only your multiplier value, current score, remaining lives, and access to the pause menu. The music is also very catchy, utilizing synthesized beats to create nice atmosphere that’s fitting for the game style. The sound effects also enhance the experience, especially when you activate an alarm trigger that creates a warbling sound that signifies that red squares are on their way. The controls are the one point that might cause gamers some trouble. Instead of using a joypad or swipe mechanics to control our hero, you instead have a fixed pad that you tap above, below, to the left, or to the right of to move around the board. Holding your finger on the screen will cause the pink square to continue moving until you release. We found the control scheme to be a bit confusing at first, but we quickly adjusted to it and have had little issue with it since, save for a few instances where it didn’t quite respond as we intended. This fixed pad can even be moved to wherever you desire, giving you a helpful customization option.
Replay value is terrific, as you can always find a better, faster way through the mazes to increase your multiplier and your overall level score. Hexage uses an in-house global leaderboard system rather than one of the more popular options, such as OpenFeint or GameCenter. Future implementation of one of these systems, along with achievements, would be a nice addition. For $0.99, you can’t go wrong with this 4.5-Dimple stud.
