Touch Physics is ingenious, addictive, and a load of fun.

The mechanics of Touch Physics are quite simple yet it is one of those things which, when you experience it, make you realize just how powerful the iPhone platform is. In fact, although Touch Physics is being sold as a game, an argument can be made that it is more of a “Proof of Concept” application.

The objective is simple — using the laws of physics (more specifically gravity) you have to engineer a little wheel to make its way from one side of the screen to the other to meet with a shiny gold star. This is done by propelling the wheel via drawing shapes with your finger which, depending on the size and the height that you draw them from, will advance the wheel with different degrees of force. The levels get progressively harder and consequently require increased thought and perhaps even increased intellect. You can create rods to leverage the little wheel with a seesaw effect, drop giant balls to get it going, or corral the wheel by guiding it along with restrictive barriers.

Overall, the developers have done a very good job with Touch Physics. The 2-D graphics have been executed very efficiently and I am especially enamored with the soundtrack. It is one of the few I actually like amongst many applications. The tutorial to learn the basics of Touch Physics is thorough and simple to understand. It uses written instructions as well as visual aids to assist you in getting acclimated to the game. You can also change the difficulty of Touch Physics by accessing the “Settings” menu from the home screen of your iPhone. This includes adjusting things like gravity, elasticity, and friction.

There are several things which could improve the interface. These include better options for navigating between levels, adding an option for a timer to the game, and possibly even inserting a sophisticated scoring method which could theoretically be part of some type of tournament feature.

In any event, Touch Physics hooked me from the word go and I haven’t been able to put it down. At an extremely competitive price of only $0.99, this game is a “must have” for anyone with an iPhone or iPod touch. For those who like to “try before you buy”, the developers, Games 4 Touch, have also released a free Lite version which offers the first six of the normally supplied fifty levels.

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category: Games, Strategy