UPDATE: V 1.1 , has some new features and levels. The marker felt font has been removed too

VernX [rating: 4/5]

Harking back to the days of those little mazes with even smaller ball bearings is VernX but taking into the future by calling them particles and giving you a futuristic looking maze to navigate them through by using the iPhone accelerometer to control the show.

VernX is an original action puzzle game. Built from the ground up with a custom game engine that allows for a unique experience. Interact with up to two hundred and twenty moving objects on screen at any given time. Enjoy playing with a constant frame rate.

The premise is to get all your particles from the start box to the end box through the obstacle course as quickly as possible while collecting yellow particles on the way. The levels can be quite unforgiving with many a ways to destroy a particle and loosing yellow particle status had they rolled through a yellow dot before respawning at the start.

While the mazes do look something like star trek the next generation there are a few themes to choose from.Everything runs silky smooth with the particles reacting quickly making the game as a whole feel solid.

Some might quibble about the dreaded felt marker font (as seen in notes.app) used throughout but I won’t be that picky, though having no soundtrack makes things a little quiet only made up by having various course elements make a sound as you hit them.

I find having long lists of levels with no menubar tap to quick scroll back to the top a minor annoyance and the only real sizeable issue I have here is, the collision detection is a little off at times and particles seem to catch on the seams between maze blocks and on the corners of slopes that often take quite a shake to get free again.

A sweet package with futuristic looks wrap up this decent game with tonnes of levels and unlockable extras which should keep you busy for a long time.

Price: $0.99 as of 12/12/2009
Version reviewed 1.0

The Good

• Good use of accelerometer
• Loads of great levels
• Unlockable rewards

The Not So Good

• Irregular collision detection at times
• No Soundtrack

Reviewed by: @TylerDurdan

VernX For iPhone: Gameplay

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