Tranquility
Publisher	TQWorld
MSRP	Free to download; $24 dollar subscription fee for non-demo levels.
Cools	Innovative, evocative gameplay. Challenging without being frustrating. Non-violent.
Boos	A bit esoteric for some. Motion blur can be headache inducing.
Rating	4 Slashes
Reviewer	Les Harris, Übergeek MacSlash.com

When I was a child one of my favorite dreams was formless with the exception of myself flying about. Tranquility has become the closest thing to reproducing that exhilarating sense of free flight I have ever played. At its heart tranquility is a game of hide and go-seek. The objective (although it feels somehow crude to use this term) of the game is to seek out objects entitled spinners; which look like rotating stars. Objects called platforms serve a dual purpose to further complicate the task: to hide the spinner, and to provide a platform on which to jump off of to gain altitude. There are no enemies to be found; in fact the concept of losing virtual lives means nothing in this game. You simply cannot die.

One needs to find seven spinners to advance to the next level. As one finds the spinners and docks with them (by flying through them), the level geometry mutates into more and more fantastical forms, making it even harder to find the ever-elusive spinners.

Graphically, the game sports a very unique style. Tranquility focuses on overwhelming you with simplicity rather than impressing you with complexity. The graphics taken individually are extremely simple, almost to the point of being crude: very basic geometric shapes are all they are. The game excels though at inundating you with thousands upon thousands of these figures; all moving, flying, rotating, color shifting, about. The result is a very abstract playing field, but in my eyes a very beautiful one. Special effects are available in the form of transparency and varying levels of motion blur.

The motion blur, while a fairly neat looking affect when you first turn it on, quickly tires your eyes. When you move it makes everything look out of focus, and my eyes felt strained after a session with it on.

Tranquility’s sound track meshes perfectly with the mood of the game. It is very cerebral, and ‘spacey’ in tonality, with no clear melodic line. Added to this are tones, or drum beats, that play whenever you land on a platform or the ground. In my mind the music seemed to adapt to these tones, playing a descending pattern that fit perfectly with the note of the platform. Or accentuating the rhythm by adding in offbeats, again perfectly timed. This might all be in my mind however, as no one around me can seem to hear it except myself (and no, I’m not crazy!!). Your mileage may vary.

Tranquility’s level design is something to behold. It is constantly mutating geometric landscape. The game adapts itself to your playing style, giving you tailored challenges to overcome. Because of the game’s level fluidity no two people will ever play the same game of Tranquility.

Scoring is one complicated beast. While I don’t pretend to fully understand it depths it takes into account virtually every aspect of your game: distance traveled, platforms landed upon, time elapsed. The outcome of this is that the game essentially is scoring your style; not that you completed the level, but how well you did. As you complete each stage you gain experience points. As you accumulate these points you inch closer and closer to a promotion. The final promotion and level will take an extremely long time to reach. No one has made it yet.

Tranquility is an online game that is free to download. After tomorrow a subscription fee will be charged to continue playing the ever-mutating online levels. However, the demo levels that change once a day will remain free indefinitely. Coming out soon is an update that will allow subscribers to create their own levels and share them with other users.

In closing, Tranquility is truly a unique game that is worth your time to look into. It’s cerebral nature may turn many twitch’n’kill gamers off but if you are looking for a relaxing, fun, game that’s complex in its simplicity, then go over to http://www.tqworld.com/ and download it to experience it for yourself.