PC and mobile gaming are crowded spaces, and they just gets moreso by the day. It’s not hard to find great games – and it’s not even hard to find cheap, great games. But what’s truly amazing is the fact that indie studio Cipher Prime consistently makes games that are both inexpensive and mind-blowingly good. Their latest creation, Intake, just shows how far they’ve come, and promises even more for the future. This intense game was released for the PC last year and is now available on the iPad as of today, and each one has its own appeal and level of addictiveness and fun.
Platforms: iOS (Version Played), PC [Mac, Windows] (Version Played)
Publisher: Cipher Prime
Developer: Cipher Prime
Genre: Crazy Drugstep Shooter
Release Date: November 5, 2013 (PC), May 1, 2014 (iOS)
ESRB Rating: Not Rated
Intake came onto the scene in a unique way on PC. Cipher Prime unveiled it in a Humble Bundle, which included all of their other games. But where the other games are more peaceful and melodic, Intake is over-the-top and in-your-face, crushing your reflexes with dubstep and unbelievable speed.
The goal of Intake is simple on both platforms: pills come in two colors. As the pills drop down, click them with your cursor. The complexity is that the pills are one of two colors, and you have to make sure your background is the same color as the pill before you hit it. In the PC version, you have to smack the spacebar to change colors, and then click the pills with your mouse cursor. The iPad version is a little trickier – tap an area at the bottom to change colors, and then hit the pills with your fingers. Sound easy? As the pills start dropping faster and faster, and as the game trolls you with un-colored pills and other junk on the screen, you must keep your head and not get click-happy. Level after outrageous level continue on and on, with more challenges and higher points. It’s arcade gaming at its finest – and you don’t even have to shovel in quarters to get there.
As you chain combos and try not to blink, you unlock more and more insanity. There’s plenty to unlock in the Vitamin Shop, including powerups that chain destroy multiple pills on the screen, one that slows everything down, and one that makes them cartoonishly oversized. There are also tons of Achievements, some of which will make your brain explode. Basically every aspect of this game, from the frenetic tapping to the pounding dubstep, is designed to do just that. And like every other Cipher Prime game I’ve ever played, it’s so much fun you won’t even realize how much time has passed.
Having played it an endless amount of time on both the PC and the iPad, I definitely have to say that I prefer it on the iPad. It feels not just faster but more challenging – as the pills bump against each other and go off the course you foresaw, you have to stop yourself from tapping the screen, or else risk the disappointment of the “Combo Breaker” flashing across the screen. And when those bonus levels arise, you can nail it with taps so much faster than you could with mouse clicks.
I know you have a million games in your Steam library and hanging out on your iPad in nice, neat little folders. I know your backlog is massive. I know all of the possible excuses you could come up with. But trust me when I say this: Intake is a game that doesn’t care about any of that. It’s a game you could play for five minutes or five hours. It’s a game you can play casually or one that can drive you mad as you try to unlock every challenge. It’s a game you want to have in your digital library because, above all, it’s one that will never disappoint you. Sit around in your bedroom and play it in your underwear, or drop it on the iPad and take your drugstep on the go.
Review Disclosure: A review copy of Intake was provided by Cipher Prime for the purposes of this review.
