Slide to Finish Review

Giving players creative freedom in games is a good thing, usually. Solving a puzzle with nothing but the power of imagination is incredibly satisfying, usually. However, unlimited creativity, with its unlimited variables, is also messy. It needs the guiding hand of design and limits to make sure fun prevails. Slide to Finish lacks that guiding hand.

In Slide to Finish players guide a sleigh full of cute critters across dangerous slopes by drawing new paths for them to follow. It's as clever a use of touch screens here as it was in Kirby: Canvas Curse on the Nintendo DS nearly a decade ago. That game also proved how pinpoint stylus control can trump finger painting. Levels take place in ice environments, desert worlds, and jungle habitats, but craggy mountains are the dominant landscape.

At its best, the game has players manipulating momentum is some pretty cool ways. Instead of just filling in gaps, players draw ramps to catapult the sled to new heights and grab faraway carrots. Fans give an extra boost mid-map so players aren't just limited to their initial speed. Levels where players must travel forwards, backwards, up, down, and even around in circles also require intense control over acceleration with occasionally thrilling payoff.

Unfortunately, it's during more finicky challenges where Slide to Finish starts to lose its own momentum. After drawing a line, players can edit it by stretching its various points in different directions. But while that fine level of control may sound appealing, it's an awkward process in practice. However, players will have to tough it out anyway because even when their solutions are basically correct, when ramps are roughly where they need to be, even the slightest shifts can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Plus, ink supplies and often times incredibly restrained, forcing players to constantly redraw the same basic layouts. Beyond being a tedious experience, it's a great example of why other games sometimes fudge their own systems for the players benefit to keep things running smoothly.

However, Slide to Finish does have enough intriguing ideas and actually intuitive stages to be worth checking out. And if nothing else, the ways in which it fails highlight an interesting dilemma on how to balance pure expression with authorial control because, ultimately, enjoyment needs both.