dEXTRIS has melted my brain. It’s as mind-numbing as Flappy Bird and the design hearkens Geometry Wars combined with the vertical scrolling action of 1942. The premise is simple yet the game is complex. While it feels impossible to hit new milestones, and most often you don’t, sometimes your cubes pass a previously unseen flashing line and you feel like a winner.
Dextris is as hard as Flappy Bird. It takes several times to get past even the first obstacle. A dozen plays in I crossed 10. Fifty plays later, my top score is 47. And I can’t stop. The teal and magenta cubes have me in their magnetic grasp.
The mechanics require constant attention yet the time to play only lasts seconds. It takes two hands and complete concentration. A few seconds into the game and one mistake will result in the cubes exploding. Those center diamonds get me every time.
The user experience would be far superior if the game didn’t lean on in-app advertisement for revenue. I would gladly pay several dollars for the app to get rid of the pop-ups and banners. But the economics of gaming apps win this round.
The game hit the App Store on May 8 and quickly raked up a four and half star review from over 5,000 users. The game’s menacing icon caught my attention and a few minutes later, I was hooked.
dEXTRIS currently has a spot on my home screen. But the love affair won’t last; it never does. Like every game before it, dEXTRIS’s novelty will fade in days and it will be regulated to the games folder on the second page of my iPhone where it will join Dots, Threes, and Disney’s Candy Crush clone, Frozen Free Fall. But for the next few days, dEXTRIS
