Socioball Review

Bouncing onto the App Store comes Socioball, an increasingly tricky puzzle game all about getting a ball from the start to the finish line. It's quite fiendish stuff by the end but it’s also rather entertaining.

You can see everything that the stage has to offer from an angled viewpoint, with tiles representing each place. Many of those tiles have already been completed, but there are still gaps that mean everything to your success. You're given a series of tiles and have to figure out what piece slots where.

Early on this is pretty easy. Some tiles cause the ball to bounce in the air, while others cause it to turn and take a different path. Some simply fill in a gap, thus enabling you to carry on. Gradually new will elements arise, such as teleportation pads, and soon Socioball turns quite tricky.

You can choose to flit between levels so you're never stuck on just one, but that doesn't stop it from being quite challenging. Some levels require multiple placements and quite a lot of thought, as well as some trial and error. There's no timer though, so you can simply soak up the challenge and deduce what's going on gradually. At times it can be a little fiddly to drop a tile down on a slot, but you get used to it.

Besides the 60 levels on offer there's a level creation tool too, which can be pretty fun to play with. Again, it's simple to learn but has quite some depth to it. It certainly extends the length of the game beyond what’s already playable.

My only significant concern with Socioball is its price tag. It's free of in-app purchases and stylishly constructed, but $2.99 is going to be off-putting to some. Don't worry about that, though. This is a well made collection of puzzles, and one that deserves your money.