Edge

Developer / Publisher: Mobigame

Released: December 2008 (iOS), August 2011 (Steam)

Edge is a platform puzzle game where you guide a cube around various levels collecting smaller coloured cubes. You earn points for speed and the number of cubes you collect, and lose points for falling off the level, getting squished, or otherwise destroying your cube. Your cube moves by rolling and can climb up steps. If you roll your cube onto an edge and hover there, you get “edge” points which are removed from your total time at the end of the game.

Edge received consistently high ratings from reviewers and its iOS version received several awards.

There was a trademark dispute with Edge Games over the use of the word “Edge”. It was removed from the iTunes store and re-added on several occasions. I guess things were resolved to some extent, because it's now out on Steam. The Steam version added leaderboards, achievements, and dozens of new levels, as well as incremental bug fixes.

Edge is easy to learn and understand but has a good deal of complexity and attention to detail. It looks clean and sharp. One relatively minor physics detail caught my eye: when your cube is immediately between two walls, you can't climb those walls, since a cube can't roll away when it's in a cubic hole. Makes sense, and a lesser developer might have overlooked that.

The 8-bit soundtrack is fun. Who doesn't like 8-bit? It's just like the rest of the game: simple on the surface but surprisingly deep and complex. It's catchy -- I caught some friends humming or whistling along as I played.

The puzzles do a good job of keeping you guessing. Just when you've got it figured out, there's a neat little twist and you have to reevaluate. Some of the puzzle themes are also pretty neat — there's a subway-themed level and a robot one. Plus, the three different categories of levels have distinct feels to them. The normal levels are basically a race to the finish where you try to die as little as possible. The extra levels provide more intellectual puzzles rather than speed or reaction based ones, with many levels featuring a face-off against the sinister dark cube.

There's a good degree of replayability for completionists: cubes collected, deaths, and speed all factor into your rating for a track, so to get the elusive S+ rating,  you'll really need to work to figure out the optimal path and timings.

My guess is that Edge is a little easier to control on your PC than on the iOS, simply due to the button controls rather than slide-across-the-touchscreen ones. The iOS version is $2.99 and includes 48 levels, while the Steam version includes over 100 levels across 3 categories, and over 40 achievements. If you want the portability go for the iOS version, but personally I'd recommend the Steam version due to the much more extensive gameplay.