Published and Developed by Joybits, Doodle Devil 3volution is the natural predecessor to Doodle God, a puzzle game that has players creating their own worlds by unlocking elements, sins, and life. The main game has players combing a small number of starter elements that can be combined to create more, with a potential 198 elements across 20 different categories. As you attempt to combine them, the Devil himself will comment on your workings, and as you unlock things, inspirational quotes will appear on the screen.

There is a second game mode in which players can choose a demon and take it to battle. Demon Battle functions in a very similar manner to most mobile games in that you’ll have to defeat the current level before the next is unlocked, and as you progress you earn coins that can be used in the main game to obtain hints or buy keys to unlock the demons you have released through your alchemy. Each demon has its own little advantages, such as having increased health or dealing more damage, but the reality is that so long as you can kill your opponent before you run out of health, you’ll win.

There will be the occasional battle where you face more than one demon as well, so these games will be a little more hands-on. Your demons have mana that can be used to cast spells using the three elements earth, fire, and air. It took me a while to figure it out due to not having any form of a tutorial, but different combinations have different abilities. Air and fire appear to heal you, while earth and fire deal quite a bit of damage to your opponent. Don’t worry too much if you can’t beat them all though. You can spend a few coins to revive your demon and continue where you left off.

Finally, players can use the Devil Slots, which are exactly what they say they are. This mode allows players to bet on 3 separate lines of a slot machine, using the coins they’ve earned during the Demon Battle to try and increase their cash with no real effort, and if you’re really wanting to waste come coins, you can buy some luck, supposedly increasing your chance of higher winnings.

The controls are incredibly simple during the main game. You use your left analogue stick to navigate the left side of the screen, the left trigger to select the grouping, and then the stick again to navigate to your chosen element. Believe it or not, the same goes for the right side of your screen, only you use the right-hand side of your controller – who’d have thought? Once you’ve selected your elements, you hit your usual confirmation button and hope for the best. I personally got quite bored of this and ended up just using a bunch of coins to buy the hint that automatically combines two elements together, forcing the game to give me new ones.

There is a little bit of music in the game, and fortunately, it isn’t overbearing, which tends to be the case for nearly all mobile-like games. It has slight sinister tones to it, which fit perfectly considering the theme for the game is the devil creating his own world. The spells during a demon battle are very monotonous, with the only real sounds playing being when you use the abilities with mana costing. Animations are mostly non-existent across all three modes, with hand-drawn icons being used to represent elements and characters. During a Demon Battle, the auto-cast spells used look identical from each demon as they briefly move across the screen, only changing slightly when you use the elements to cast something better. During the main game, the only animations that play are when the elements are capable of being combined are moved about on the screen over a pentagon, looking like someone is clicking and dragging an icon across a monitor.

I think it’s safe to say that I don’t think this belongs on console or PC – it’s a mobile game with an exorbitant price tag. The gameplay feels monotonous and dull and while simple in its design, the controls would be much better suited to a touch panel. They’ve dubbed it a puzzle game, but you don’t get penalised when you make a mistake; you can simply keep clicking on various elements until you create a new one.

Written by: Mathew Lindner