Blast-A-Way

Released on August 30, 2012, for iOS, the game received praise for its gameplay and minimalist design but criticism for its controls.

• Developer — Illusion Labs • Publisher — Illusion Labs • Released — August 30, 2012 • Genre — Puzzle • Modes — Single-player • Platforms — iOS

• Illustration — In Blast-A-Way, the player must rescue Boxies by breaking the level's obstacles. Blast-A-Way is a puzzle video game. In each of the game's 80 levels, the player must clear paths to collect creatures, known as Boxies, by using their provided tools, including bombs and teleporters.

Blast-A-Way was developed by the Swedish studio Illusion Labs, who previously created mobile games such as Touchgrind (2008) and Labyrinth 2 (2009). The game's concept originated from an image of box-headed robots throwing bombs, created by one of the studio's artists. Initially an action game, Blast-A-Way would gradually become a puzzle game through its nine months of development; four were spent on prototyping, while the remaining months were spent on developing the game. The game was developed with Xcode, Adobe Photoshop, and 3D software in which they had built their own level editor. The game's minimalist design was decided early in development; the studio decided to only use shading until they implemented textures to make the game "a little more appealing" to consumers. Controls took approximately a month to develop. Since the game was three-dimensional, the developers opted for a throwing mechanism instead of a slingshot mechanism. Blast-A-Way was released for iOS on August 30, 2012.