Quetzalcoatl Review

Developer: 1 button
Price: $1.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0
App Reviewed on: iPhone 5

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The name Quetzalcoatl may sound familiar. It's also the name of an ancient deity, and has appeared in the Final Fantasy series as a winged, serpent-like, lightning creature. Although 1button's simple but beautifully-designed puzzle game shares the same name as this god, the only things it really has in common are some serpent-like objects that must be manipulated to match colors.

If there's a game like Quetzalcoatl, I've not seen it before. Players are presented with a grid-like game board that contains one or more black, serpentine objects on it. The "snake" may or may not have circles of different colors along its body, and players must drag them around so that the colored rings match up with squares of the same color on the board.

This may sound simple, but in Quetzalcoatl -like most snake-like games - moving the snakes is purely linear; meaning that the snake can only follow either of its ends, so players have to figure out a path of movement that results in the colored circles aligning in each increasingly difficult level.

It's hard to fully understand how neat this concept is without diving in and experiencing things first-hand, primarily because it's an idea and concept I've not seen before. Beyond that though, Quetzalcoatl is immaculately designed from top to bottom. It uses a minimalist interface, the controls are snappy and effortless, and each level's design is increasingly more creative and mind-bending than the last. Quetzalcoatl also adds a nice touch for players that get stuck on a particularly tricky level: certain worlds are completely unlocked for them to try out, which keeps it from ever feeling like it's trapping players in a certain linear progression path.

With 180 levels across 12 worlds, Quetzalcoatl is an incredibly impressive package. It ultimately ends up feeling like one of those games that's perfectly suited to mobile. It's easy to jump in or out of, but offers a tough and satisfying challenge each time it's booted up. Its minimalist nature might not make it the flashiest or most impressive-looking game on your phone, but that's not really what it's going for. There's really nothing else out there like Quetzalcoatl, so it is absolutely worth picking up and checking out.