Zen Bound

Fancy yourself a deft hand at tying things up? Is binding something until it can’t move with taut thick rope your idea of entertainment? Well before this review leaps to an adult 18 rating let me redirect you to Zen Bound, the thought provoking puzzle title and quite possibly the most impressive game available on the iPhone today.

Far from an effort to stir up kinky thoughts, the actual objective of Zen Bound is to wrap different objects up with rope. A simple concept it may be but the gameplay forces a challenge only an effective touch screen console could achieve. Using both thumbs you rotate and pivot a high quality 3D object and the rope shooting out from the bottom slowly engrosses your objective.

And what of these objects? Well luckily for a game which is sure to attract a lot of attention from gamers of all ages, very dull inanimate shapes are the challenge. From different wooden animals to simple square geometrics, each level presents a shape that offers a new challenge. Strange grooves and sharp edges can make wrapping up a level consistently challenging.

To complete each stage the rope must cover a predetermined amount of the object’s surface area before being attached to a final nail to finish. Easy as it may sound, rather than just spinning the object round and round, the challenge to include so much of the object forces patience and steady thumbs as you rotate the model. Just to add to the difficulty it’s easy to run out of string without reaching the objective, so a careful process of manoeuvring the ever-straining rope is required.

Far and beyond just a brilliant original concept for a game, Zen Bound hits the target of creating a fully engrossing experience; a difficult task for a new console that screams out for casual for folk on the move. Here Secret Exit have made leaps and bounds to really draw the gamer into the challenge. The mood is eerie, creeping and nervous with music more likely found in a horror title. The atmosphere is further complemented by fantastic inlay audio (headphones are a must!) of stretching and straining rope over a sombre bass tone more at home in The Wire. All of this, added to the dark and gritty graphics creates an ambience that is very easy to get lost in.

And this is what is comes down to; games need to be engaging. The challenge for any iPhone game developer is to create a title that genuinely suits and complements the technology but also strives for originality to make people take heed of it as a console with a very serious gaming future. And Zen Bound does just that. It is showing what is possible on the iPhone with an original and challenging concept which is technically fantastic and offers gameplay worth shouting about. If this is the kind of gaming we can expect for the iPhone, then it’s time to start getting very excited about mobile gaming.