Galaxy Express Review

I'm a big fan of the puzzle game. It stems from a happy childhood of completing puzzle books on various journeys and holidays. These days I don't have to wander around with a book or magazine though, thanks to the ever trusty iPhone I can load my device up with a whole plethora of puzzlers to tackle while I'm travelling. Galaxy Express is just the kind of thing that provoke many moments of head scratching. It's good fun though.

You have to help a space delivery boy navigate his ship carefully to the goal of each level. That's pretty much it. There's no time limit or score to aim for, it's all quite relaxed yet quickly challenging. You have to place arrows that direct the little spaceship in the right direction of the goal. Further awkwardness prevails when you only have a limited number of arrows to position. This means that you have to rely on other obstacles such as asteroids to direct your ship in the right direction, accounting for the fact it can only move in a very specific way.

While the first few levels are pretty easy to figure out, it's not long before things get harder. Fortunately, more than one level is unlocked at any one time so you can always go back at a later date. It also makes for a great social game as you can collaborate with friends or work colleagues and figure out the solution. Indeed, Galaxy Express encourages this by allowing you to tweet, email or use Facebook to request help from friends if they don't happen to be nearby at the time.

Galaxy Express makes for a pleasant change in a genre that's often infatuated by the urge to beat other people's high scores. Instead it's all about the journey rather than the destination. The promise of a level creator in the future is a great idea too so I hope this is implemented soon.