INKS.

First off, I love that this comes at a reasonable price, with zero ads and no content locked behind microtransactions (aside from consumables, iirc). That right there is 5-star worthy these days… Otherwise, it’s absolutely gorgeous, aesthetically plays well to the strengths of a digital medium, and is easy to pick up wherever, whenever; it’s also sufficiently tricky, while being flexible towards more relaxed styles of play. I’m docking one star, however, for two shortcomings in particular: 1.) each table is treated as an isolated puzzle, which is fine, but given there’s no way to seamlessly continue playing (painting?) once a table is “completed”, and no way to progress to the next puzzle without backing out into a menu first, the flow is just… all wrong, not at all what one would want for a pinball game. 2.) There's zero customization available, leaving you with the same cardboard brown + primary colors throughout the game, which gets repetitive and uninspiring far too quickly for a game that sells itself on its artistic merit. If those two issues were fixed, this would be an easy 5 stars. Nevertheless, it’s certainly still an easy recommendation.

State of Play comes up with some real unique and beautiful games. Relaxing but challenging at the same time. Meditative in a way, if I can use that. I’ve had KAMI for years and every time I upgrade phones and the game resets, I’m learning it again (though not all over again). Just found out about this game, Inks, and it fits the same bill. Very pretty. Nonjudgmental (i.e. no timer, *I* set the pace; you can reset and try again). I just scanned a long review where someone thought this was boring. (People write movie reviews like that, too. They see a picture about real life and then bash it when it’s not like Star Wars.) Anyway if you’re looking for the game equivalent of “get it done or you’re dead” then, yeah, it is “boring.” But there are tons of games out there that will make you sweat. I don’t need that or I don’t always need that. Sometimes I just need to **be**, and this is a great game for that. I appreciate it for the game it is. Thanks for designing it.

It's pretty cool, and original too. I'm a pinball fan, and this one gives me a lot of entertainment. One thing irks me, though. The ubiquitous "Share" links everywhere. Someone wants to know that I held a pinball with my flipper for more than a couple of seconds in an IOS game? Really? You think they really give to dog farts about my macro accomplishments in a mobile pinball game? This nonesense is what's already rendered social media near-useless. This narcissistic notion that everyone wants to know what you're doing at any given point in time. It's awful. It's truly awful. And history is going to judge it harshly. You're on the wrong side of history here, folks. You don't HAVE to jump on every me-too bandwagon, you know, you could stand for something instead of being an enabler for narcissism which border on psychopathy. At least I wish there was a way to turn it off. Being reminded that you guys are part of the problem every 60 seconds actually does bother me a bit. "Wait, you're outraged about something before the herd instructs you to be outraged about it? Why, it's unheard of! You're a witch! A witch I tell you!" (I just used heard 3 times in a sentence, weird) Yeah, can you believe it? BTW, when they talk about who destroyed the soul of humankind by shoving unfettered self-centric behavior down everyone's throat, I hope you guys step up and at least some of the credit. Anyway, yeah, good game, which unfortunately contains crack for those with narcissistic tendencies, such as people who type 300 word rambling game reviews.