Last Horizon, a new app by Pixeljam, is a challenging app that pulls you in. Last Horizon has you invested into your character on screen and is definitely an app worth getting.

In the app, you are a lonely survivor of an asteroid that hit the Earth. Desperate to rebuild life, you build a rocket ship and shoot out into space. You are limited on fuel and oxygen and have to repair and refuel on different planets. The story in itself, though clichè, draws you into the game, making the experience more immersive.

It is incredibly hard to land your ship on another planet. One mistake, and you could damage your ship, or worse, completely destroy it, causing a game over. This happened to me countless times while I was playing. I had to finally resort to locking myself in my room so I could concentrate on the landing.

Another thing that you do on this app is terraform. In order to rebuild a new Earth, you need trees and plants and animals, all of which you collect on the way. However, the game does give you the option of over harvesting a planet with life on it. This destroys the planet, but you have more resources for the new Earth. This interesting moral dilemma brings a new layer to the game and makes the app more enjoyable.

No matter how good you are at games, you’re going to die a lot in this game. What makes it even sadder is the surprisingly heart wrenching phrases appear on screen when you are about to die. Phrases like “The hull, no!…Not like this” and “There is nothing left for me here” appear on screen. You become surprisingly attached to that small rocket ship gliding on your screen because you are that little ships only hope. You want to protect it because in the end, your decisions decide it fate. This emotional investment is what drove me to continue playing over and over. It makes the game addictive, in a good way.

One of the few things that lighten up the mood are the graphics. They are cartoonish in a way and definitely helps make the tone of the game less depressing, which is good. I don’t want to cry after every time I mess up.

The music for the game is spot on. It does a great job of portraying the theme of being alone out in space, maybe the last human alive. It is like the sound of running your finger over a wine glass rim, that ethereal, distant, vibrating sound.

The only bad parts about the app is the controls and how the app portrays information. The controls can be hard to get used to, and if your finger slips to much in the wrong direction, boom, your space ship is gone. I found it rather hard to get down the right motions to safely land or to steer correctly.

Another confusion was that I didn’t know what was dangerous or not. Certain structures on a planet can be dangerous, but it is awfully hard to tell which ones. It is the same with objects out in space.

Overall, Last Horizon is a wonderful app that intrigues the player. It is well made and is definitely worth the three dollars.

by RACHEL LARSON