If you enjoyed Lemmings, then you’ll enjoy Spirits by Spaces of Play. This is a puzzle/platformer in which you have to get your spirits from a starting location to a destination vortex. That is the primary goal.
There are secondary goals of collecting plants, and some levels will have these plants scattered around to create an increased challenge. Every level will inform you of the criteria is for perfect completion: how many spirits must be saved, how many plants must be collected. Like Lemmings, these spirits proceed single-mindedly until their environment is influenced.
How do you create those environmental influences? Depending on the needs of a particular level, you can assign tasks to your spirits to get the rest of the spirit herd to their destination. Any task assigned to a spirit sacrifices them to that job.
- You can create a blower, which transforms your spirit permanently into a gust of wind, which you assign to blow in a particular direction. Your spirits, being light, will be carried on this wind.
- You can create a digger, to tunnel through earth.
- You can create a builder, to build a ramp of branches to get to areas your spirits could not otherwise.
- You can assign a spirit to be a blocker, which will block wind already existing on the level.
The game also has a nice feature to speed up time. To get your spirits to where they are going much faster.
The graphics are pretty, and the spirits remind me a bit of the kodama from the Miyazaki film, Princess Mononoke. The sound is unobstrusive, and the music is gentle, somewhat soothing.
The game is available on iOS and Android. If you’re looking for a casual puzzle game, with a nice aesthetic, then give this a try. Doubly so if you were ever a fan of Lemmings.
