[New Game] Avoider Is A Puzzle Game That Challenges You To Move Colored Squares In Tandem, Is Harder Than It Sounds

Android Police

By Eric Ravenscraft

Published Aug 16, 2012

Well, this one sure is going to bend your brain a bit. Avoider is a puzzle game with a very basic premise. You have to move two colored squares to opposite

Well, this one sure is going to bend your brain a bit. Avoider is a puzzle game with a very basic premise. You have to move two colored squares to opposite corners of the screen without hitting any obstacles. The catch? They're movement is locked together, and you only control the blue one. When you move your box, the red one moves in perfectly-synced symmetrical motion. Yeah, it gets convoluted. Though, reading this site, I'm sure you're used to that.

[EMBED_YT]https://youtu.be/KHV1YXyVIl4

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While the concept is great, this game does have one fatal flaw: touchscreens. As you may or may not be aware, fingertips are often attached to hands, which are themselves attached to arms. These appendages are not transparent. So, when a right-handed person reaches to touch the blue square in the top-left corner of their phone or tablet, the rest of the right limb ends up covering most of the display. This makes navigating moving obstacles very difficult. In the initial twelve levels, I found myself switching hands more often than I would've liked. I was even forced to use my non-dominant left hand to perform certain tasks, while bending my arm awkwardly around the screen for others. This was very uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, this isn't a problem the developer can really overcome. This type of game requires visibility over the whole screen, and until we can turn our hands invisible, it will be impossible not to at least partially obstruct our view of a touchscreen while using it. For what it's worth, the game is still playable. I managed to make it through all of the free content rather quickly. However, especially later on in the game, the touchscreen problem could get very bothersome.

Avoider is free on the Play Store. Without paying anything, you have access to a dozen levels, which will be plenty to decide if you can live with the touchscreen limitations. If you want to keep playing after that, the rest of the 72 levels can be unlocked via an in-app purchase of $0.99. As a side note: developers? This is how you do in-app purchases.