Ktarian

iPhone / Jeux

Ktarian — a holographic puzzle of light.

A meditative recreation of a fictional alien game from a 1991 sci-fi episode — a holographic device that looked like fun and behaved like compulsion. Tilt your thumb on the joystick. The disc drifts toward a glowing funnel. The funnel swallows it. One down. Repeat for every disc on the level.

Sixty levels, twelve tiers, ninety minutes of quiet, escalating difficulty. Each tier adds something:

• Drift. From level 6 the funnels start to wander.
• Time pressure. From level 16 a clock ticks. Run out and the game offers you another 30 seconds. Accept it. You can accept again, and again, and again, forever. (That is not a bug.)
• Scarcity. From level 26 there are fewer funnels than discs. One funnel must catch two, then three.
• Hostile cones. From level 31 red roaming repellers shove your discs off course.
• Closing walls. From level 41 the playfield contracts toward the centre.

Five Memories are hidden in the game — stills earned at level milestones, each one quietly revealing what this game is actually about. The first unlocks at level 10. The fifth at level 60.

A small button at the top-right of the menu reads TAP × 3. Tap it three times. It will tell you something you might not want to hear.

There is also a Cheat option in Configuration. The game will not stop you, but it will ask if you are sure. Skipping the climb robs you of the climb.

No leaderboards. No failure state. No ads. No purchases. The game even plays itself, badly, if you leave it alone for a minute. It is, very gently, asking you to put the phone down.

If you remember the episode, you will recognise the shape of this game. If you do not — it works on its own terms.