Bring You Home

AN IMAGINATIVE PUZZLE GAME. $4.49 | bringyouhomegame.com WHILE MANY iOS games are available on both iPhone and iPad, the latter’s large display can often enable immersive, tactile experiences that don’t work on smaller devices or traditional gaming systems. Bring You Home is a good case in point, rethinking platform puzzling by having you directly manipulate the environment rather than the protagonist. Said protagonist is Polo, a blue alien who’s just seen his pet kidnapped by villains who then disappear via a portal. Polo sets off in pursuit, falls from a second-floor window, and face-plants on the ground.

Fortunately for Polo, time then rewinds, and you are invited to save his dignity and face. Tap the play button and Polo’s fall is broken. He then leaps through the portal to find himself in a jungle. Clambering up a vine, it snaps, and Polo is in trouble again. This time, there are four options — giant mushrooms, pink beasts with dangly tails to grab, and a spiky plant that might work as a ladder...

At this point, you might think it’s going to be a cinch to get that pet back, but Bring You Home quickly ramps up the difficulty. Scenes introduce multiple panels, some that move, and multi-step solutions. Single-screen scenes become complex webs, where setting Polo off in a particular direction may result in a decidedly unexpected outcome. Sometimes, the logic is a touch suspect, and you might wonder, on seeing Polo killed several times in a row, if Bring You Home is too reliant on trial and error.

Really, though, what you’re doing is testing a system. You try something, note how this affects the outcome, and figure out how tweaks might change things. Only a couple of times during the game does this become trying. Mostly, it’s a joy, and much of that is down to superb animation, and a lot of imagination.

Even failure is rewarding, since Polo’s demise is often entertaining in itself. Sorry, buddy. At the end of the day, this is a wonderful, tactile, inventive puzzle game that is a joy to play.