Guide The Light Review

Guide the Light is a rather fiendish yet simple to get to grips with puzzle game.

Following the tales of explorer, Captain Blake, as he discovers the hidden secrets of a pyramid, players must use mirrors to bounce light around each screen, in order to get to the next challenge. It's a mechanic that many puzzle fans will have seen before, but it's done well here and proves an increasingly challenging excursion.

As is often the way, the early stages are simply done. Players are introduced to the basic concepts such as how to bounce the lights around. Different colors emanate from certain sources and a selection of mirrors are used to bounce them around. Located at different angles, figuring out how to solve a puzzle is a careful and sometimes bewildering process. The first few levels are pretty straight forward, but then there's the introduction of splitters and combiner blocks which must be used correctly to change the color of the lights accordingly. Combiner blocks only offer one output, proving a particular challenge.

Keenly planned out, a new type of mirror or challenge is unlocked just as the player has adapted to the previous conundrum, which is how we eventually find ourselves with a two sided mirror and a whole heap of convoluted level design. It's tough going at times but, as with so many challenging games, satisfying to complete.

One saving grace for the easily confused is the presence of crystals. These Vision Crystals can be used to see how to solve the puzzle and are very useful. Even better, one comes free every 15 minutes of play, or users can choose to pay $0.99 to speed things up. There's a catch in all of this though: players still have to remember the solution in order to know what to manipulate and when. It's a handy resource, though, for those in need.

Guide the Light isn't for the fainthearted. It's the perfect example of 'easy to learn, tough to master', but it is well designed to encourage players to persevere. Don't expect to fly through the 50 levels on offer, but do expect an appropriate challenge throughout.