Syn (iOs) Review

“Syn requires a constant connection.”

Syn is an interesting game concept that requires a constant physical connection and a whole lot of dexterity. As the game begins, you hear a convincing robotic voice giving you commands on how to play the game. The game itself has a pretty simple concept, so the tutorial is pretty small. Basically, you are commanding “Syn”, which appears as a fingertip sized circle on the screen. To move Syn around, you touch with your finger and drag. The first thing you learn is to pick up little glowing aminos, which are basically like your health.

From there, you learn about the “bad guys” of the game. These are little black dots called malcrobes – a dangerous infection that only Syn can defeat. Touching them results in a loss of Syn’s life force, so you want to avoid them if at all possible. This is easy at first. When there are just a few here and there, it’s a simple thing to zoom around them to catch the glowing white amino orbs. But as they begin to multiply, they not only steal more and more screen space – they also eat up your aminos, giving you less and less opportunity to pick up the power you need.

So all of those glowing orbs and black malcrobes are pretty much all over the screen – besides frantically swiping around trying to pick up one kind and avoid another, what can you do to clear the screen a bit? You need to break bonds. The black malcrobes at times form bonds with each other – basically a black line connecting them. You need to break the bonds, releasing energy that eliminates enemies, effectively clearing swaths of the screen. Of course, you need to break those bonds without actually touching anything but the line. And you need to pick up aminos as well – in fact, the game instructs you prioritize collecting over eliminating malcrobes, which isn’t all that easy to do.

As you advance in the game, you can unlock different modes, giving you more options of how you want to play. This is done by purchasing upgrades and unlocking modes with the aminos you’ve collected in game. Of course, this takes a significant amount of gameplay to build up, so you can purchase using real money as well – but the game isn’t pushy about it. You can still keep playing and earning at your own pace.

Syn is an interesting game that is fairly simple in design. The basic mechanic is both simple to learn and challenging to master, making it a game anyone should be able to pick up and play. Though it can be difficult to both maintain constant contact with the screen (the game pauses and gently “scolds” you if you lift your finger), as well as see what you are doing with your finger blocking the way, it is overall and interesting and engaging game that is well worth a download.