Picture yourself on a long train journey. The world outside is whizzing by at unimaginable speed. The fog is rolling over the gentle hills of the countryside, giving everything a dim, dreary feel that could really describe any part of England during a morning commute. The window beside you vibrates at a frequency designed to never quite be unpleasant but always just noticeable. You long for an escape from this situation and consider a nap, as you’re still tired from the gaming marathon you inflicted upon yourself the previous evening, but you know any hope of a nap is fleeting and will leave you only worse off afterward. You could read, but your eyes only just managed to focus on getting your key into your lock this morning and you’re not convinced they could manage to even tell what a book was at this point in the day.

You need something to drown out the grey of the morning. To liven up the buzz of the train. To make that stag night ahead in the coach that smells like a brewery from twenty feet away despite the fact it is 8:30 on a Tuesday morning feel just that bit further away.

It is into this sort of environment that a mobile game like Unwynd truly shines.

I’m not a huge fan of mobile games. Much like casual games on the web browser, I have a very short attention span and, more importantly, very little disposable income to spend on more lives/hearts/dinosaurs on a regular basis, meaning that I get very little out of them. I spent all of three weeks and no money playing Candy Crush before I shrugged my shoulders and asked “What is the point?” To me, gaming isn’t meant to be a business venture. Its not meant to be about the micro-transaction strategy or how gods damned shiny the interface is. I am generally pretty cynical of anything that seeks to enter the mobile gaming market. I always suspect that it will be some sort of money-making scheme or something that wants desperately to be addictive and viral, like Flappy Bird.

So to say I went into Unwynd, a mobile game in development by COMPANY NAME, with low expectations is probably an understatement. But I like to give new things a try and, having been forced to survive for the past week trapped in a hotel room in Malta by high winds and heavy rain and without any sort of internet access or English-speaking TV channel, you could say that I have been more receptive to mobile gaming than I normally would have been.

The game is actually pretty difficult to explain. You swipe across the screen, creating lines that cover up boxes with different colours. You want to try to cover a certain number of boxes with certain colours in order to clear the level. It’s a simple premise but is presented with a suitably shiny and slick interface that it looks good even on my aging smartphone. It is primarily white space, making the bright colours seem crisp and bold in contrast. The sound has the kind of pops and swooshes that you’d expect from it, but it works well in the game and actually makes the game more enjoyable with the sound on. As far as mobile games go, it is well put together.

The copy that I got my hands on seemed to have only a limited number of finished levels, meaning that I only got to try about sixty levels in total. I say “only” because there is very little to each stage. You’re unlikely to spend more than a few minutes clearing each. I’m not the most clever puzzle solver in the world, but even I was able to finish this early copy over the course of a week-long vacation. I imagine that most people could easily clear all sixty levels on a single flight from New York to London without really breaking a sweat.

That said, there is something Pavlovian about the sounds and chimes the game makes. It is intensely rewarding to watch the colours all melt across the screen as you finish, the little victory tone playing for just a second. It, like most of the other sounds and visuals of the game, is very simple but surprisingly pleasing.

All of this, however, still doesn’t mean that I think it is a particularly fantastic game or that I think it is going to become the next unnaturally profitable Candy Crush or Angry Birds. At this point in time, I don’t think that there is quite enough to the game to justify paying for it. Still, it is a pleasant way to pass a bowel movement or a few minutes while you wait for a bus. I would say that it is worth keeping an eye out for Unwynd when it comes out and snag the free version of it, though. As far as mobile games go, it is perhaps the least offensive to me.

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