Corrypt Review

It’s always refreshing to spend some time playing a game made by Michael Brough. He has a knack for creating titles that are almost as experimental as they are entertaining. Of course games that are this atypical are usually of the Love It or Hate It variety. Corrypt is no exception, but it also manages to push the fun and the experimental design further than any other iOS creation in his library.

Corrypt is a Sokoban-style game at its core so it’s fairly easy to come to grips with right from the start. Swiping in a given direction moves the bizarre little mushroom man and moving against crates will push them so long as they’re unobstructed. Of course things take a turn almost immediately once players learn that they can also pull the same crates by moving away from them. The entire affair takes place in a surreal alien world of sorts, and players will have to chat with or otherwise assist a number of weird denizens as they go about their box-pushing business.

The totally weird visual style and somewhat strange music might delight some and annoy others. However, the gameplay itself is the star of the show. Simply adding a pulling dynamic creates some fairly devious puzzles, but things only get more complicated (in a good way) the further players manage to go. Some creatures follow the player’s movements and must be controlled via the environment (i.e. sticking them in a corner) in order to get around them. Others can push and pull boxes on their own. This all creates an intriguing gameplay system that expands steadily with the game’s progression, and that’s all before getting to Corrypt’s big twist that I’m not going to spoil here.

Sometimes the swipe controls don’t register right away but this is the kind of game that doesn’t really suffer from control issues. A slightly more legitimate irritation is the way resetting a room boots the player back to the previous one. Again, it doesn’t ruin anything but it’s a little bothersome to have to walk back inside rather than simply set the room back to “zero.” A far more significant issue is the distinct possibility of getting stuck once Corrypt’s most experimental mechanics come into play. There’s always the option to reset a room or even restart the game, but after making it so far it would be a shame to have to start all over after getting stuck due to a smallmistake.

Corrypt is a game that got my attention with its visuals, gained my favor with some interesting gameplay twists, and finally earned my utmost respect and adoration when it pushed those twists even farther. It’s still probably not for everyone but Sokoban lovers looking for something different - and maybe even open-minded adventure game fans - need to check it out.