Perfection. Review

Perfection is a challenging line-drawing puzzle game that eschews much of the trappings of modern gaming to be a pure, untouched package.

Shapes are presented, along with an outline pointing out what the shape should look like. So, players need to cut the shape with straight lines in order to make it fit in the outline. Three difficulties, each with an additional mechanical challenge, are available. There's just cutting, there's cutting with the need to also rotate the shape into place, and cutting with rotation and pinching to modify the size to get it in the outline. Thus, the challenge becomes to analyze the shape, and to see just how one must slice it to cut it perfectly in the perfect number of moves, because the name of the game is Perfection, after all.

Surprisingly, despite plenty of opportunity for the game to be chock-full of progress indicators, scores, and rankings, Perfection prefers a more abstract approach. There are virtually no progress indicators at all, so players are largely left to just play, and not to pursue tangible objectives other than the minimum number of cuts on a shape. Of course, this does mean that motivation for playing comes solely from wanting ot play the game itself.

Frustration is largely alleviated thanks to multiple design decisions. Correcting mistakes is very easy, by tapping the "undo" button in the upper-right corner. Prepare to tap it a bunch on more complex puzzles, where it may be necessary to go back to step one. An easy way to reset to the beginning, perhaps by just tapping and holding on the undo button, would make sense? Is a puzzle too hard? Just call up the menu, and tap the icon that looks like a shining sun to call up a new one. Or, choose a new difficulty.

The game is thankfully somewhat lenient as well: edges that stick out slightly or don't quite make the border will still allow for success to be attained. Just be very careful about matching angles. Control-wise, the game is a better fit on larger screens because more accurate cuts are easier, but the point indicators showing where cuts are being made makes even iPhone play work really well.

Perfection is largely for the self-motivated, and those more interested in the raw mechanics of play than those who prefer attaining status through play. Still, a clever mechanic handled in multiple ways, and with little in the structure getting in the way of players from achieving their goals, then that just means there's a lot to like here.