You are a red ball…planet…alien…thing…out in space, but luckily you have your beloved space kitten (complete with little spacesuit) to keep you company.  But one day a bad black hole monster comes and takes your kitten away from you!  Oh no!  You then find a trail of rainbow colored paw prints.  Could these lead you back to your feline friend?  In Graviter, you’ll use planets to affect your gravity as you fling and swing your way to collect all the pawprints in a level.  This physics and gravity based puzzler is available on Nintendo Switch and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

Each level is a single screen, with your character on the left side represented by a dot.  Your job is to collect all the pawprints in a level.  Sometimes there may be just one, other times two, three, or more.  Before you send your dot flying into space, you can manipulate different planets on screen.  Switch between planets with the L stick, and manipulate them with the R stick.  Some planets you can move around certain areas, others you can make bigger or smaller, and some you can toggle ‘on’ or ‘off.’  These actions will all affect the gravity around your dot, and you can see how it’ll change your direction with a trajectory line.  When you have the right trajectory, press the B button to send your dot flying, hopefully in the direction of a pawprint.

Sometimes you may not be able to collect all the pawprints in one move.  For those you can ‘pause’ the action as you’re flying around.  But you must be quick because you zip around pretty fast, and you have a limited amount of times you can do this in each level.  Then you can readjust the planets and press the button to send your dot flying again.  The level is completed when you collect all the pawprints.  If you fly off screen or into a planet, you must start the level over again.  As you complete levels, you’ll earn coins.  Use these coins in the shop to customize your dot, the trajectory line color, and trail effects.  You can also buy more pause moves and even level skips as well.

I’m pretty surprised this game isn’t available for mobile devices, as it just seems like one of those kinds of games.  The game just screams ‘touch screen support’ as it would be perfect for moving your planets around.  Oddly enough, you can’t use the touch screen in handheld mode on the Switch.  Seems like a missed opportunity.  I would’ve liked to have seen a hint system, too.  Graviter isn’t a bad game, it’s just that the trial and error style of play kept me from staying interested.

Kid Factor:

Nohting violent or objectionable here.  Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, and younger gamers may find it too difficult.  Graviter is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews