You know, when I go to a quiet place I usually prefer playing puzzle games, you know, to ease my mind an relax.
You probably remember the game Stack AR. It’s a popular AR puzzler where the user needs to stack out blocks on top of each other by timing their fall right. Well, Space Cone is quite similar but different.
To be honest, I wasn’t into playing yet another Stack AR-like game, I’ve already played a few like Let’s Stack AR!. Anyways, I came across that game called Space Cone. It’s promoted quite badly because its subtitle says “Quick-fix, toward space!”. I first thought it isn’t a game because of that weird title. Even the description doesn’t really explain what this game is about. The only reason I understood that it’s a game because it was categorized under the Games category.
Anyways, I’ve downloaded yesterday and decided to try it out today when I god out. I went to see Nintendo’s official store in I’Park (also written as I-Park) Mall in Seoul then I went to Yangsan Park near Korean National Museum.
That place was beautiful and a great place to sit down and play a relaxing augmented reality puzzle game.
What is Space Cone?
Space Cone is an iOS puzzle game that can be played in AR or regular game mode. I obviously spent most of the time playing the game in AR mode, although I have a few minutes with it.
Space Cone is quite similar to Stack AR. The goal is to try to stack as many blocks as possible one on top of the other. However, in Space Cone, you control the size of each block by tapping and holding. The longer you hold, the larger the block. Your block cannot be larger than the previous one. If you build a larger block, you lose 1 health.
The optimal move is to create a circle that is the same size as the previous one. Making it smaller means that the next circle needs to be as large as or smaller than the previous one.
the smaller the circle is, the harder it to time out the position of the next block. So unlike Stack AR where you time the location, here you time the size of the block.
If you create the same exact size as the previous cone you get extra health which can help you keep on going for more time. As you progress you’ll gain coins base on your performance and you can use those coins to buy new cone skins.
The goal of the game is to try to get as many points as possible. You get 3 points for a perfect fit (tile exactly the same size as the previous one) and 1 point for regular placing (tile smaller than the previous one).
Let’s check out some gameplay!
Game Design & UI
The game is very similar to Stack AR in terms of look and feel. The game has very sleek and clean user interface.
The game uses primitive shapes but it spices it up with colors and subtle animations. This adds a touch of sci-fi touch to it, so it definitely helps the look match the title of the game.
AR Experience
I actually liked the simple design. It helps the game blend well with the environment. When I played it, I could enjoy playing it while also enjoying looking at the beautiful environment in the background.
Unlike similar block-stacking games that reduce the size of the tower so you can clearly see the behavior of the top tile, here they tiles stack all the way up without any height limit. This obviously poses an issue as the player cannot clearly see the top piece when you build a larger tower.
On the other hand, it actually was nice to see how the tower stacks up against outdoor structures. It made me to actually play the game near structure and try to make it higher than them. However, this type of design is not good. The maximum tower height should be limited by default, so the player can have a good AR gameplay experience when playing at the table in his home as well. Stack AR and Jump AR solve that by first, limiting the size of the tower, and seconds, once the game is over, the tower expands vertically so the user can realize its full height with all the tiles stacked one on top of the other.
Oh, one last thing. I was playing the game outside without an Internet connection. When I was in the room with an Internet connection, I saw that my record wasn’t saved in the online global leaderboard. It would be nice to have an option for the app to save the high score on a local storage and update the global leaderboard when an Internet connection is detected.
Some regular pictures I took while reviewing the app at the same place…
Conclusion
I enjoy playing Space Cone as I enjoyed playing Stack AR. Having said that, I did enjoy the hold-and-release type of mechanics better than the single tap one in Stack AR.
I found the skins to be really unexciting. They didn’t encourage me to try to play more to achieve more coins in order to unlock them.
It’s a very casual mobile AR game that is fun when you need to kill a few minutes, like when waiting for the doctor, on your way to school, in a boring afternoon, when waiting for a call, you get what I mean.
I think you’ll like it if you enjoy playing Stack AR. However, this game feels a bit less exciting because the block doesn’t break like in Stack AR, the solid color is kind of boring compared to the multi-color and textured look of the tiles in Stack AR. Same goes for the sound effects. I really liked the Xylophone sound effects each time you drop a tile.
So overall, it’s a free and relaxing AR puzzler for anyone looking for a casual game to kill some time. It does fall short from Stack AR in my opinion, but the gameplay control still feels different and unique.
Download Space Cone from the Apple’s App Store for iOS (iPhone and iPad) here and for Android devices here.