ABRISS: Build to Destroy – Review

What better way to celebrate building something up, than to knock it back down again and todays review is for ABRISS: Build to Destroy where the objective is to build with the sole intention of destroying it right away using physics based puzzles to destroy predefined targets as you venture through 7 worlds each packed with 7+ levels gradually unlocking a hole host of destructive mechanicsms to take ou tthe targets for each map.

On each map, you’ll have a build zone and red targets to destroy, you’ll need to use various pillars, connectors and parts to knock down towers and make contact with the red targets which then explode.

Starting on the main menu, you get the choice of three game modes, Campaign, Sandbox and Endless mode which are accompanied by the usual options and credits.
The main mode is Campaign, where you’ll work through 7 worlds, each with 7 primary levels with a few extra maps dotted around as you progress.
Sandbox mode opens things up so you can create your own destructive puzzles int he setting of your choice, which is great way of testing out your equipment or just testing yourself.
The downside with Sandbox mode is, a challenge is only as tough as the search to find the answer and if you already know the answer, it’s not quite as entetaining, unfortuantely there’s no community netowrk for sharing your sandbox creations, becasue having community made maps to challenge yourself would have been a massive improvement on the mode.

The 3rd gameplay option is Endless mode, where your central build platform is surrounded by 8 randomly generated towers, and destroyign these (and the white targets within them) will award you ned parts to continue your demolition spree.

Back to the campaign and starting from world 1, you’ll begin with a few simple parts, such as pillars and heavy cubes where you’ll need to build a tower tall enough to topple into the target structure, progressing through these early levels you’ll start to unlock more parts, such as a rotator, hinge or bomb, which you’ll soon be utilising to create catapult like structures to hurl bombs.
At first glance it didn’t seem very inviting, but once you start to get a grasp of how the physics work, and you literally only have to touch the targets, I found the first world pretty straightfroward and moving on to other worlds, you’ll consistently be unlockig new parts, (which is where some time in sandbox mode helped to get used to them).

There’s innevitably some sections you might struggle with, but the game has an unforgiving unlock system where after a few levels, you’ll have a handful of unlock tokens, so if you do get stuck you can just unlock the next level, or even jump straight to the next world.

While I’ve played many, many puzzle games over the years, including physics base ddestruction titles (usually on mobile devices). I still found ABRISS a very unique feeling game, which was equally rewarding when you did fathom out the best way to proceed. Sometimes your progress is purely luck, othertimes perfect calculations and execution, thankfully you’ve usually got more than enough resources to try a few different approaches, but sometimes things do get a little tricky when you’re pushed to use a specific methof you might not be as comfortbale judging as something like a falling straight tower, thankfully with those unlock tokens progress was never halted for too long.

There’s also plenty of longevity and while the icing on the cake would have been the option to save, share and play community creations, there’s still more than enough to keep you going well beyond the £16.99 price tag.

Overall presentation is pretty good, the graphics are clear and overlal pretty well done, even though the often bland and barren nackgrounds feel like a bit of a let down when the destruciton and deformation usually looks so good.
One complaint which accompanies the control scheme is the camera, it’s often quite fiddly trying to position parts precisely and while you can press to hold and fine-tune positions, it takes some getting used to and will feel inacurate and frustrating at first. The awkward camera doesnt help as you’ll sometimes be moving relavent to the screen and then dependent on the specific piece youre targeting which results in some occasional hiccups when you only want to see what you’re doing.

Audio is on par, the often repetitive background tracks feel a little dull, but when you start blowing things up your ears get a little more action with all the expected explosions and destruction.

It’s hard to be too critical of ABRISS when it’s a reasonable price, offers plenty of bang for your buck and provides a challenging and unique expeirence, it’s a shame some of those challenges will be wrestling with the caemra and control scheme, and the lack of community creations is like misplacing your last bom on endless mode, but overall ABRISS: Build & Destroy is a fun, challenging and destructive puzzler which is well worth considering if you can be patient with getting to grips with how the physics, camer and controls work.

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