Find The Line is a puzzler which hangs its hat on beautiful illustrations and a mellow, meditative soundtrack. Since it's free to play, there are compromises involved, but with a bit of patience you'll be sucked into a cerebral and subtly alluring world.

The key to Find The Line is to unearth a hidden object by connecting a seemingly group of disparate lines. Several drawn objects will be located at the left and right hand of your screen at the beginning of each stage, and when you tap one of these items, they will transform into a line that can twist and swerve its way into a multitude of directions. Once you tap on the object, a slider at the bottom of the screen is used to move the selected line back and forth. You will slide your finger along the bar and watch this line take many forms, and once it takes a shape that you believe will solve the puzzle, you will then tap on another object and create another line that will hopefully fill in the missing pieces.

Chillingo Ltd
Chillingo Ltd
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One of Find The Line's more charming elements lies in the journey it takes to create the final pictures. When connecting the right combination of lines, you can uncover stars that increase your score and keys that unlock more stages. Other pictures can also be created that give hints on what you'll eventually be drawing. For example, one stage required drawing a painter's brush, but before I was able to create the final image, the lines took the shapes of paint splats and a canvas. Once I arranged the lines in the perfect combination, my paint brush was created, the puzzle was solved, and I was treated to a beautiful image.

Chillingo Ltd
Chillingo Ltd
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Three hints are readily available once you get stuck on a level, and as the stages get harder, more hints are available as in-app purchases. With over twenty-five levels played, certain stages took me several minutes to complete, and so far I've used up only one hint. Unlike many puzzles which may have you bored once you're stuck on a stage, the creation of new images and multitude of line combinations keep the gameplay interesting.

Find The Line's major weakness lies in its free-to-play mechanic, which pushes ads down your throat at the end of each completed stage. Although you can skip each ad after five seconds, constantly watching app advertisements puts a damper on the proceedings. The aforementioned music, a piano driven score that oozes tranquility, coupled with the visual precision of the drawings, imbues Find The Line with a refreshingly contemplative aesthetic. The barrage of advertisements, however, instantly places you back into freemium madness, and that's not a good thing. As of this review, there is no option to disable the advertisements, and that's a much needed feature on the game's future updates.

Chillingo Ltd
Chillingo Ltd
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Find The Line is a highly impressive puzzler which literally takes gamers on an unexpected, mind-bending journey. Life is not simply about connecting the dots, as there are figurative signposts we may use to help us find our way. With Find The Line, we are confronted with a series of pictures and configurations to guide us to our final destination point. Whether we find keys, stars, or create beautiful images along the way simply depends on how far that line takes us. It's a truly imaginative game that's definitely worth the download, even if a few ads get in the way.

This review was based on a downloaded copy of Find The Line for iOS.

App Store Link: Find The Line for iPhone and iPad | By Chillingo Ltd. I Price: Free | Version: 1.0.2 | 71.8 MB| Rating 4+

7.5 out of 10 arcade sushi rating

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