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Knots for iPhone

What is it?
Knots is a iPhone game that challenges users to keep their fingers firmly placed on different dots and remove them sequentially to score points. It’s essentially “Twister for your fingers” with a time element. Rings form around dots and you lift your finger off the dots before time runs out.

How much does it cost?
Free.

Who is it good for?
Casual gamers with two free hands looking for a challenge. People who take public transportation and have the luxury of being seated. Anyone looking for a fun, time-burner that has the flexibility of having their phone in their lap while playing. The DDR crowd who enjoys motor skill-type games.

Summary
Knots is a challenging, at times incredibly frustrating, casual game for iPhone that is simple, but very fun at the same time. While the concept seems simple and easy, users will find themselves challenged and their “fingers in knots” trying to make contact with the screen as the different dots appear and disappear. As much as the application is about finger acrobatics, a lot of it depends on just focusing on your fine motor skills to only lift one finger at a time. Ultimately, Knots is easy for anyone to pick up, but challenging enough to separate the casual gamers from the serious Knots players.

Keep it or Delete it?
Keep it.

We were surprised at Knots – finding it much more challenging than we initially thought. Seeing as many of us are great at stupid human tricks (juggling, spit bubbles, Guitar Hero, etc.), we thought that keeping our fingers firmly placed on the screen and removing them one at a time would be easy.

Trust us, it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Like playing Dance Dance Revolution with a controller or keyboard, one of the challenges with Knots is that you have to strategically place your fingers on the screen so that you’ll be able to reach future dots that could appear (and disappear). Like DDR, a lot of the strategy behind Knots is just about “getting into a groove” or becoming familiar with the timing behind the game.

There are Easy, Medium, and Hard levels, along with One Player and Two Player modes, the latter of which could be great for guys trying to accidently touch hands with potential significant others on the bus. Logically, the harder the level, the smaller the dots and the faster the pace of the game. On the two player mode, the dots are color coded and points are awarded for speed and efficiency to each of the players. In just a few dots, you’ll quickly find out why the game is called Knots when you have two sets of hands in the mix.

What we like about Knots is that it actually gets pretty hard and that it’s one of those games that anyone can pick up and play at the same time. It’s a tough balance to create a game that has universal appeal that also rewards those who actually work hard at the game, but Knots does that well. Another thing that we really like about the application is that you’re able to listen to music through your phone’s iPod function while playing.

With a strong balance of simplicity and challenge, Knots is a great casual game that might take a little bit more involvement on the users’ part, but we think it’s worth a download.