Mobile Game of the Week: Pivvot (iOS)

If Super Hexagon was the equivalent of a dance competition, Pivvot is a night out at the clubs. In fact, the entire affair reminds one of a hazy night out on the dance floor—the changing colors, the pulsating lines, the hypnotic dance grooves. Pivvot doesn’t want you to slam your phone down when you don’t break your high score 15 times in a row—it wants you to just keep grooving to the beat.

In Pivvot you don’t control the dot that’s moving around in the abstract space of lines and color. You actually control the swiveling circle attached to the dot that’s moving around. As the dot follows the line, your job is to keep the little circle that pivots (wink wink) from colliding with any obstacles that may come its way. The controls work in similarly to Super Hexagon—tap left on the screen to pivot left around the dot, tap right to pivot right. It seems straightforward, but things can get pretty tricky once you are upside down or sideways and left becomes right and right becomes left.

Thankfully, the controls in Pivvot are not nearly as fast or responsive as they are in Super Hexagon, resulting in a much less frantic experience (although you can change the sensitivity in options). The animations aren’t as obtuse and unpredictable, the geometric shapes less angular and unrefined, and the whole thing shines with a professional level of polish. And while all that adds up to a somewhat less memorable experience, it’s the small things that Pivvot gets right that make it so hard to put down: the way the music slows down once you inevitably lose but never actually stops, or the way the “restart” button so quickly gets you back into the game.