In a bid to become more professional, I decided that I would now concentrate on my career. No more wasting time on Football Manager Handheld and Reddit when I could be studying Agile software methodologies and self-learning SQL. Ditch the games, get with the programme. As you can imagine, this lasted the best part of a week before I got bored. Having tried, got bored of and swore I’d never go back to most of the apps on the Google Play store, I found myself on Twitter and stumbled across the hashtag #screenshotsaturday. And that is the story of how I came across Mothership Touch Battle.

A product of Sillycat Studio, Mothership Touch Battle is one of those lovely simple apps that are both beautifully presented and hideously addictive. The basic premise is that you have control of a space ship, and you have to shoot down another identical space ship. At your disposal you have an ever recharging resource bar, which allows you to produce and deploy three different smaller ships; Bombers, Interceptors and Fighters, as well as the odd nuke thrown in here and there. That’s about it as far as complexity is concerned, with the only extra input being the choice every so often to upgrade your shields, the power of your nukes or the speed your production bar regenerates.

Based on my above description, you’ll have noticed that there isn’t too much to Mothership Touch Battle complexity wise but seriously, don’t let that put you off. The game is gorgeous. Its beautiful neon colours on black background are stunning, and the swarm mechanics of your smaller ships as they attack enemies are thoroughly mesmerising. Plenty of times I make the effort to try and generate dozens of Fighters (the smallest ship, which requires the least amount of your resource to produce) just to watch them cluster and overwhelm anything that the enemy ship can produce. It is a pure retro joy to experience.

App games have evolved now to a point where there is a clear defining line in the genre; those that are full games (your final fantasies, Football Managers and GTA’s for example) which bring you the experience you know and love on a new platform, and the mini game that in another life you would have stood in front of in an amusement arcade pumping your weeks pocket money into and smiling at how great your life is. Mothership Touch Battle is very much the latter, and is the perfect fit to it. It’s a quick hit, full espresso bolt to the brain that you watch unfurl in front of you, and it’s just so enjoyable to play. You may have noticed, but I really can’t recommend it enough.

 

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