IOS Review #104: hocus

Title: hocus
Developer: Yunus Ayyildiz
Platforms: IOS Universal
Price: $0.99
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Earlier this year, developer Yunus Ayyildiz released the challenging shape-crafting puzzler rop. Its simple mechanic of manipulating ropes and nodes to mirror shapes was used to offer quite tricky and complex spatial conundrums. Now Ayyildiz's next game hocus is also about spatial conundrums, but rather than recreating shapes, you're navigating them,

Each level in hocus presents you with an impossible Escher-inspired structure. You guide a red cube along the perimeter of the shapes, traveling along the odd shapes towards the waiting exit. Forced perspective allows you to travel along planes that appear to touch, letting your cube navigate each impossible maze to reach your destination.

It may sound complicated, but hocus is actually a pretty laid-back puzzler. There are no timers or move counters, so you can access each level at your own pace. While the shapes grow more complex and intricate, the core mechanics remain the same and the game even has a compass that lets you know which directions the cube can move at each junction.

Every new level in hocus is a pleasure to study and navigate, especially if you're a fan of Escher-style illusions and impossible shapes. The game's minimal aesthetic complements its simple yet increasingly challenging puzzles.

Hocus currently features 50 levels, with more to come. You can purchase the game for $0.99.