'The Mirror Maze' Review – Ow, My Brain Hurts

'The Mirror Maze' Review – Ow, My Brain Hurts

posted by Eli Hodapp on May 25th, 2010 4:34 AM EDT in $0.99, Games, Puzzle, Reviews, iPhone games, iPod touch games

Re-posted by Yonatan Frimer

Last weekend, Assyria Games' unleashed The Mirror Maze [$1.99] on the App Store. Like any good puzzle game, the entire premise of The Mirror Maze can be explained in a single sentence: Control a red and a green ball, and get each of them in to their matching color zones on the other side of the screen.

This goal is accomplished by touching where you want the red ball to go. The green ball then goes in the opposite direction. The first few levels are very easy, and it doesn't take you long to understand the remarkably simple concept of the game. This is the exact moment that The Mirror Maze starts throwing increasingly difficult mazes at you which require a surprising amount of brain power to complete once the levels advance to the point of not being symmetrical at all.

Not only do the mazes become completely asymmetrical, but they eventually start being composed of both moving barriers and the warp gates seen above which act like little portals warping your ball between them. All of these obstacles must be successfully avoided using a single input for both balls, and it's really surprising how much thought goes in to figuring out the movements of both balls using a single touch input.

The Mirror Maze has online leaderboards powered by Agon, and while there are currently only 36 levels included in this version of the game, the following gameplay trailer makes mention of more levels coming soon:

There have been a ton of maze games released on the iPhone, but few offer much variation on just getting a single ball to the end of a maze. It would be nice if there were more levels, and there is an odd pause as mazes reload upon each retry (of which there will likely be many), but The Mirror Maze is worth trying just to see how difficult it can be to not only avoid obstacles with the ball with regular controls but also constantly thinking in reverse while you manage the other ball.

App Store Link: The Mirror Maze, $1.99

Bill Gates' Microsoft iPad, Cartoon Maze by Yonatan Frimer

Bill Gates' Microsoft iPad - Cartoon Maze


Editoral Cartoon Maze in Larger and Printable Format
Can't solve the maze? Click here for the maze solution

Editorial Cartoon Maze of Bill Gates telling his team of monkeys to make a microsoft version of the iPad.

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Should Microsoft employees openly use iPhones?

Should Microsoft employees openly use iPhones?

It's like Katie Holmes telling Tom Cruise she prefers Brad Pitt's movies. It's like Rupert Murdoch's wife googling a Wall Street Journal article to get past the paywall. It's like Reggie Bush telling Kim Kardashian that her sister Khloe is cuter than she is.

This is hurt, anguish, and embarrassment all wrapped up in one corporate migraine. The problem, you see, is that there are quite a few people at Microsoft who love the iPhone. At least that is what an article in The Wall Street Journal is suggesting.

The article offers stories of Steve Ballmer himself pretending to stomp on an employee's iPhone. It tells of Microsoft employees being sheepish about exposing their Apple-made contraptions in meetings. It even suggests that as many as 10 percent of Microsoft employees might be in the thrall of the Cupertino King.

Is he reaching for a stray iPhone? Surely not.

(Credit: D.Begley/Flickr)

Naturally, there will be those who suggest such behavior is heresy. Ballmer, according to the article, explains that when his father worked for Ford, the family only drove Fords. But in those days, corporations were slightly different beings than they are now. People believed they had a job that would last forever, rather than one that might not survive the next clever little financial ruse from some halfwit on Wall Street or the next pandering to Wall Street by a halfwitted CFO. Employees offered loyalty, because they thought it would be returned. What hope is there now of that?

It is, though, a ticklish area. Does an employee's preference for the iPhone suggest that Microsoft products aren't good enough? Why, yes it does. At least for them. But does that have to be a bad thing?

Ad agencies sometimes become (even more) neurotic when they entertain clients whose products many at the agency don't use (or even privately loathe). The truth is, you can create fine ads to sell Daewoo cars without ever driving one. You can happily sell a bank where you don't have an account. Please may I also confess that I've done successful campaigns for both baby shampoo and tampons, while, strangely, not being a user of either?

If the Journal's tales are accurate, then perhaps the different behaviors of Microsoft employees say more about the people than the products.

If there are those who harass iPhone users, that reflects those people's management styles. If there are those who are embarrassed about being seen with an iPhone, then perhaps it might just suggest they are worried about their careers and desperate not to inspire ire. Are those the kinds of employees that thrive at Microsoft?

While some, such as Microsoft software engineer Eugene Lim, reportedly use their spare time to give public talks about developing apps for the iPhone, others sneak around not wishing to be seen as traitorous.

There seems even disagreement amongst senior Microsoft figures about how this issue should be handled, though in 2009 the company reportedly performed a little tweak to its corporate cell phone policy. You only get your service fees reimbursed if your very smart phone uses Windows Phone software.

At heart, though, perhaps the message that resonates most personally and most deeply in the heads of both management and employees might be: "Why couldn't we have made that? Are we really not cool enough?"

This article sponcored by Team Of Monkeys Maze
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