Dotter

Summary

This „chickenbrickstudios” game is all about, well, dots. Yes, dots are the so-called protagonists of this app, which is thus quite rightly named Dotter. Read on to find out if this game is worth your time or whether it’ll drive you dotty.

The goal is to place as many dots as possible on to the screen. This might not sound all that challenging, the point is that the dots actually move, and they’re not allowed to collide with each other.

A dot can be placed in a give position by tapping the screen—the dot will then simply appear. The first dot that gets placed on the screen begins to move to the left at a constant pace. As soon as it disappears off the left hand side of the screen it reappears on the right and moves towards the left again. The cult game “Snake” comes to mind: the snake also exits the screen on one side only to reappear on the other. Dotter’s dots do exactly the same thing.

The second dot doesn’t travel to the left, it moves upward, rotating clockwise at 90°. It follows its orbit in the same way as the first dot, and once its disappeared at the top it makes its onscreen return at the bottom.

Dot number three also does the 90° clockwise turn thing, but towards the right hand side of the screen. The fourth dot goes towards the top, the fifth goes towards the left. This pattern (including the fact that the dots turn clockwise at 90°) always remains the same.

It’s up to the player to place dots in such a way that they won’t collide with each other. If a dot has made its journey across the screen once without colliding with other dots, the dots in question won’t crash into each other in subsequent runs, because the direction and pace always remain the same.

That about sums up the principle behind the game. You’re awarded 100 point for every dot, and collisions are accompanied by a vibration effect. Now, this may not sound like something that will blow up skirt, but I can tell you that it has the same addiction factor as other “simple” gameplay games such as Tetris, Pacman, and co. You want to beat your top score each time you play, try to come up with better tactics for placing the dots on the screen, and can’t help but compare yourself to the scores earned by the top 30 players. At the moment you have to manage to place at least 48 dots on screen to even make it into the top league of players… I’ve got a ways to go yet with my humble top score of 16 dots.

Now that you’re well informed regarding gameplay and controls there’s only one thing left to do: practice, practice, practice!

You’ll find the following three points under Dotter’s main menu:

• play: Begins a new game. You can also restart a game if you hadn’t finished it yet.
• top scores: Shows you the world’s best 30 players.
• how to play

You can also switch the vibrating effect on and off via the menu button. If a game has ended due to collision, you have the option of entering your name in a field that opens up and you can find out what your score is by pressing "Submit“. You can also check out the best scores by pressing “Top Scores”. And if you want to commence a new round, press “Play Again”.

This is the perfect game for when you need to kill a bit of time, but it also makes for a great game to play for a longer period of time, seeing as you may just keep going and going trying to beat your own top score.
 

The app is very fast and starts after loading for a brief moment (no more than one or two seconds). The visuals are kept fairly simple, but the glitter effect when dots collide or when a new dot is placed on the screen is pretty sweet. Controls are child’s play: the menu is completely self-explanatory and in order to place a dot all you need to do is tap on the display. I appreciated the fact that when a new dot is placed the device vibrates momentarily, thus giving the player some feedback during the game. I would therefore recommend to keep the vibration effect switched on.

The game runs smoothly no matter how many dots are onscreen. I didn’t experience any problems with this app.

You can download Dotter free of charge from the Market, but you will have to deal with advertisements beneath the main menu as well as after every completed round.