One Hundred Ways Review

One Hundred Ways is a simple premise for a puzzle game, but quickly becomes complex as you make your way through the 100 plus levels. The aim is to get the ball from the start of the puzzle to the hole within the map. Obstacles increase the difficulty of the puzzles as they progress, but the tools you are given allow you to counteract these obstacles.

Having started life on the major mobile platforms of Android and IOS, along with PC and Mac, One Hundred Ways has found its way across the gaming border to the Xbox One store. The game has undergone optimisation during its travels, as comes with extra levels to boot. Whilst originally designed for finger presses and mouse clicks, movement has been mapped to the Xbox One controller, allowing the game to feel right at home being played on the Xbox One controller. With this transition to home console comes 15 extra levels, and 18 levels that have been made exclusively for the Xbox One version.

The design and graphics of One Hundred Ways are very simple but somewhat stylish. Whilst there is little detail within the puzzles, the colour pallet brings the puzzles to life, with striking contrasts and bold colours. While the majority of the obstacles are stationary, a number of them do have small animations to them, all of which look as they should. The fans have nice air effects so you know which way they are blowing, and the grip arms have smooth and fairly detailed animations when you zoom in on them.

The sound of this game is nothing to write home about. There is a simple tune looping in the background, with simple yet competent sound effects when obstacles or tools are interacted with. The sound doesn’t intrude on the gameplay, but also adds nothing to the experience. The sound design is our first clue that this game belongs (and has belonged) on mobile platforms. Whilst muted sound design is mostly detracting for One Hundred Ways, it does play in to the relaxed feeling of the game. With the game telling you to take your time, having  subtle and somewhat relaxing soundtrack looping in the background does add somewhat to the relaxation of this game.

The gameplay for One Hundred Ways is the next glaring moment when the feeling of ‘I should be playing this on the bus and not my TV’ kicks in. Whilst the puzzles given are complex when you get deep in to the game, the lack of interactivity saps some of the enjoyment from the puzzle. The premise is a ‘set and go’ style, where you plan your strategy then get the ball rolling, so to speak. This, depending on how you like your puzzle games, could either be perfect for you, or somewhat of a boring scenario.

The controls are also very reminiscent of a mobile game, and at times extremely frustrating when using the analogue stick, it’s a bit tricky to highlight the right tile at times, and ended up with me rage quitting once or twice. Not a big issue, but can be highly irritating. Fortunately, with this game not being time sensitive, having at times fiddly controls never causes too big of an issue, they just take some getting used to, and require some patience when a touch of the analogue stick highlights the wrong tile.

If this game is up your (bowling) alley, then there is a large amount of puzzles to keep you entertained, there is a lot of hours of puzzling to be found in One Hundred Ways. One Hundred Ways has a bit of charm to it, but it really does just belong on your phone rather than on your Xbox, it’s nice and relaxing if this is your thing, but it is set up as a ‘pick up and play’ style which doesn’t suit this platform. If this style of game isn’t your thing, you’ll definitely want it give this a miss, if it is your thing, there’s better puzzlers out there, and for £7.99, you’d be marbles to get it at full price.

If you like your puzzle games, and this crops up on the Xbox One store on a sale, or even on Games With Gold, then for a few pounds, it could be worth a shot, and whatever your thoughts are on these types of games, its undeniable that there is a lot of content to be found in One Hundred Ways.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Microsoft Xbox One code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.