For a mobile game that was created in 100 days flat, Super-Fluid is certainly an impressive achievement for developers Surface Tension. The app was actually the result of a Virgin Media led challenge and went on to win the competition. So what is Super-Fluid?
You play as the game’s namesake, a creation of Dynamisplice; a corporation with an unhealthy obsession for creating warped organisms with bizarre abilities. Following your recent release from a containment shell,and a strong desire to leave the facility, which is littered with traps as well as the corporation’s failed abominations, you decide it’s time to make a break for it.
The challenge with Super-Fluid lies in how you traverse the 2D side-scrolling levels, but the ace up your proverbial sleeve is that you can transform your molecular structure at will to morph between solid, liquid and gas states. Depending on your state your abilities change: as a gas you can float over large spaces, but are also buffeted by strong airflows, as a liquid you can move quickly across the floor and spray coolant to solve puzzles and as a solid, although slow you can destroy or move crates as well as operate buttons and levers.
Moving through the levels, you’ll encounter a range of enemies with different abilities, some of which are only vulnerable depending on the state of matter you adopt. The three hit health bar is demanding but not impossible to work and a restart only takes you back as far as the level you were playing. With regards to the play mechanics, the player can change Super-Fluid’s state by shifting their finger up and down a thermometer on the side of the display. Shifting it down cools your body until it turns into a solid, whilst upping your temperature turns you into a less dense gas.
Not only is the morphing mechanic thoroughly intuitive and enjoyable, but especially when considering the time it took for the game’s development, the art style is incredibly well polished, with a nice comic-book style art and vibrant, colourful environments.
The game file is large at over 120MB so we suggest that you download it over WiFi, but it’s worth the wait thanks to it’s addictive gameplay, creative use of a scientific grounding and the fact that it’s completely free. Available now on both iOS and Android.
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