Pulse

Four on the Floor

Pulse was one of Cipher Prime’s big hit games on iOS. The gameplay involved a (titular) pulse emitting from the center of the screen, and sweeping across dots that would spawn further out. The player had to tap on these dots at the exact moment the pulse hit them. The timing of this crossing was not coincidentally along with the beat of the song playing in the background. What made the game particularly interesting was that it made heavy use of the iPad’s multi-touch functionality, with the player sometimes having to tap two or three diffrent dots on opposite sides of the screen at the exact same moment.

Android After All

During my interviews at Cipher Prime, one of my stated goals was to take their category of excellent iOS games and bring them to Android with Unity. While they were initially hesitant, the success of Splice on the platform meant that I was given time to port both Fractal and Pulse to Android. Pulse was particularly difficult because the game was designed specifically for the screen size and aspect ratio of the iPad. The varying capabilities of Android devices made getting everything on screen at a usable size a daunting task. In the end, we limited the release of Pulse to Android tablets only, as the game was too difficult to play accurately on smaller screens.