ADD IT UP: CANABALT, SOLIPSKIER DEVS (RE-)ANNOUNCE IPAD PUZZLER HUNDREDS


10.5.2012

Brandon Boyer

3 Replies

One of the iPad games I’ve been dying to get my hands on for nearly a year now, Semi-Secret’s Hundreds has officially been announced with this awesomely designed new website, following a quick blip appearance during last year’s IGF (where it managed to land an honorable mention in the mobile category).

Based on an original concept from Solipskier and Gasketball designer Greg Wohlwend, Canabalt & Capsule developer Adam Saltsman has been vastly expanding on the concept, and the pair have brought in Scott Morgan, better known as local-favorite ambient musician Loscil (who you also heard contributing tracks for Osmos), turning an ultra-minimalist design into a gorgeously & mysteriously presented package.

The conceit is as simple as it can be: flat-colored circles slowly meander across the single-screen stages, harmlessly bouncing off one other, each with a digit in its center. Touching each circle inflates it, and each stage is complete when the added total of all digits equals 100.

The trick? No circle can touch another while it’s being inflated, meaning you’re forced to find perfectly timed moments to inflate when there’s no danger of a collision, something that’s clearly harder to do as the circles grow larger.

You can try a very early concept of the game Wohlwend submitted in 2010 at Newgrounds, but bear in mind that the game’s grown a hundred times more complex in the two years since, with Saltsman adding some truly devious wrenches into the works, as well as a layer of opaqueness that hints at a deeper narrative happening within the game, as seen above.

The game’s making its public debut at IndieCade this weekend — LA locals should make a beeline to it in anticipation of its release in coming months.

See more posts about: , , ,