This game has got me in a spin

Just like its title, aa is about as simple as it can be. Its single tap controls have you releasing a series small spheres up towards a larger central, spinning orb, and your only goal is to attach all of the smaller orbs without letting them touch.

Lets go around again

But while the goal and controls are straightforward, successfully squeezing every one of your spheres around the target quickly becomes a huge challenge. The first time you have to attach 15 of these balls, it starts to feel like the act of shoehorning them all in around the central hub will be almost impossible.

Perseverance, however, will soon set you on the path to aa Zen. The rhythm of your taps to release your spheres into orbit becomes second nature, and you find yourself able to fire them upwards into tiny gaps around the central mass without conscious thought.

An appealingly basic visual style helps this, with the clear black of the orbs standing in contrast against the plane color of the background. The more balls you send into orbit the more they blend into one, blurring together until they look like a single block spinning around the rotating central core – all before they satisfyingly explode outwards when you complete a stage.

Merry-go-round

It is only as you begin to feel you have mastered aa that it starts to add small twists to the formula that subtly change how it plays. And they really are tiny changes – rotating in the opposite direction, changes in speed, more balls starting in orbit – nothing that actually makes you rethink tactics, but all just enough to throw off your Zen.

It was thanks to this combination of simple one touch gameplay and slowly evolving challenge that I found myself becoming increasingly addicted to aa. Launching orbs upwards the changing rate of rotation often saw me firing too rapidly, causing them to smash into each other. This is what proved that I was in deep as, rather than quitting, I began silently swearing at the game on trains, at home, and at work (while reviewing it of course) as I failed, restarted, and failed again.

Perhaps my only complaint is the audio. In itself the various sound effect and music are actually quite pleasing, but the steady music does not sync up with the action, leaving it feeling like a rhythm game that is setting out to deceive the player.

I’m spinning around

aa’s perfect, addictive simplicity, make is easy to recommend to fans of twitch gameplay and rhythm games.