Gathering Sky (2015) Review

Rating:
EU Release Date:	Aug 13, 2015 (multi-platform)
Total play time:	00:40:00

 

“Gathering Sky is a playful and emotive experience about a flock of birds. You start with a single bird high above the ground. Guide the bird through the sky with your touch or a mouse, exploring the world and finding other birds to join you. Your flock grows as you travel across the beautiful skies of a far-off land and create an expressive story without words.”

Gathering sky isn’t so much a game as an interactive screensaver. There is no scoring system, no defined objectives and no competitive aspect. But that doesn’t mean it’s not fun. The aim is to guide the bird through a loose maze of obstacles, collecting other birds along the way.

It’s actually a very relaxing game. Unlike a lot of the games I’ve played, there’s nothing in this that seems unachievable, but it still has all the ups and downs of any game with characters or dialogue. The designers’ use of the beautifully painted backgrounds, lighting effects and, of course, the stunning soundtrack create an atmosphere of wonder, joy and occasionally tension.

Wordament (App) Review

Rating:
Release Date:	September 4, 2013 (for Android)

Wordament is a word game from You vs. the Internet and Microsoft Studios, first released for Windows Phone in 2012. The app is now also available on Windows 8, iOS, Android and online. Plus, there are currently 15 languages to choose from, although some are still in beta.

The aim of the game is to make as many words as you can from a 4×4 grid of letters in two minutes – it’s like an electronic version of Boggle. Using the Xbox Live service, you can play against thousands of other players on the same grid, with a score calculated from values to each letter used a like scrabble. The leaderboard is shown at the end of each round with your ranking against other players worldwide and a list of all possible words from the round.