Spinner Prologue

Spinner Prologue is a free game where you guide a constantly moving arrow through a maze by tilting the iPhone while avoiding the walls. You'll explode whenever you touch them, so patience and quick moves will lead you to victory. That is, if you keep yourself from falling asleep. Although the game works fine, it's not much fun to play.

At first, we dug Spinner for its simple to use controls and well-designed mazes. We expertly tilted our phones 360 degrees and reached the goal several times. Then we encountered dead ends, and Spinner went from neat iPhone App to something we wanted to stomp on. Without a mini map or the ability to examine a level before playing, it's impossible to tell if the path you take will lead to your doom. You can pull a quick 180 and get out of harm's way, but you normally see the dead end seconds before smashing into it.

To help you out, publisher Fuel Industries programmed an auto save that records your progress whenever you quit, and there are helpful tips for n00bs that don't know what they're doing. But neither of these features make the game more enjoyable. An auto save cannot make level 8 less annoying. If anything, it's a constant reminder that you're stuck and probably angry.

With most reviews, we blast a game for having glitches, but that's not the case with Spinner. It's a well-designed game with a cool premise, but it's not fun, and unless major changes are made, it'll continue to irritate us. Fuel promises an expanded version with more levels, but that doesn't get our video game juices bursting, especially if it wants us to pay. Sorry, but we sealed our wallets.