A Noble Circle 9+

I have waited to write a review until now. I started way back with A Dark Room. Finding the world mysterious, frustrating, yet oddly satisfying and enlightening, I looked up who made that spectacular game, discovering Amirali Rajan and his games. The ensign came next. Getting through that game was significantly more difficult and took way more time and dedication to get through. The ideas surrounding those two games are extremely unique and satisfying, the best experience and thing to come out of owning a smart phone to date. That was 4 or 5 years ago, I’m not sure. When A Noble Circle came out, I was intrigued. Completely different style, extremely difficult. I went through and beat it though, loving the story and waiting for each update. This must have been a year or two ago. Tonight, I checked back and saw a new update, with a new ending. The message is awe-inspiring, deep, life changing, motivational, introspective, and truly touching. Amirali Rajan deserves the world for what he has communicated through his games and the obvious love, passion, and effort that has been conveyed. I discovered Hope many months before, and I have grown up with it thanks to this man, finally relayed my experience. Amir, if you read this, let me know how I can help continue your passion and support you through a monetary donation because you deserve more than any money-sucking impersonal game that Supercell or any other company produces. This work is truly incredible.

I started playing the game I think one year ago. I think I stopped somewhere before the square saga. This night my boy fell a sleep to the sound of piano by Raphael so I decided to try to play through the game as far as I could.

To be honest i enjoyed and I did not enjoy the gameplay. I found some solutions which I think the developer was not having in mind and having “jump” button made some puzzles all too easy. I’m not sure if all of the puzzles, let’s call them puzzles , could be solved without jumping. I don’t feel very much motivated to go back and try again. Also, I sometimes could not execute moves precisely as my finger was covering the screen and I could not see what was happening below my finger. Maybe there was no other option to solve this or to design this in another way, but it’s just something I felt.

I LOVED the story. I really do. And bonus stories are also amazing. The author really knows how to narrate and this game is story heavy (despite having an antiplot 🙃). At the end of the main arc and at the end of the game I really felt moved.

I would give this game million points for the story telling (that’s 1 with ten zeros … give or take a zero) but only few points for the gameplay.

I wrote a long review that got deleted because I forgot my password. I can't stand the thought of typing all that again, so here are the highlights: 1) Flatland, Sphereland, Flatterland, and Planiverse. Great riffs on the societies in some of those books, and great use of this genre as a metaphor. Way back when you wrote the first version of this game, the very last moment of the story was radical - the Circle just bounces alone, on and on and on. I think we were meant to keep going looking for a last Easter egg and wondering: are you (the designer) still there? Just as you must have wondered if we (the audience) were still there beyond where you ended the story.

We are.