There is a brutal simplicity in Hitman Go, one that flows from it’s very clean design and the refined list of actions players can take, one that stems from well-designed puzzles that eschews randomness in favor of careful logic and planning. That simplicity was a two-edged sword, but I had a fantastic time with Hitman Go

The goal of this game is to get to the end of each map, sometimes that’ll be a target you have to kill, but most of the time, it’s a circle somewhere on the board. You move one step at a time, and then enemies move after you. If you move into enemies, they’re removed from the board, if enemies move into you, you have to restart the level. All enemies have predictable patterns, from the blue guards that will just look in one direction and won’t move to the orange guys that move in straight line back and forth. Enemies always do the same thing and each level has at least one solution, if not only one. If you make the wrong moves, you can get stuck and need to restart the level, I wish there was a way to undo my last move, especially in the later levels where the maps get larger and more complicated.

The mechanics are introduced slowly without any kind of tutorial, you’ll start a new level and there will be a thing you’ll need to use in order to win, and that’ll teach you all about that thing. Either rocks that you throw to make noise and move guards, trapdoors to move around the board, costumes to disguises yourself as a specific guard color and keys to open doors, everything is explained by the way you use it. The game then throws special challenges like finishing the level in X turns or less, not having any kills or picking up a suitcase that might be out of your way. If you’re stuck on any of these, you have a few hints you can spend for the game to show you how it’s done. Some of these make me wonder if there’s a way to finish the level in even less turn, or if they were designed with that minimum built-in. Sometimes the tricks aren’t as obvious either, moving back and forth to set up favorable patterns can be quite obscure

If you enjoy puzzle games and would like to play something with a unique style, I really had a blast with Hitman Go. There are plenty of levels to go around and you might replay them more than once in order to complete all the challenges. The controls work well for an iPad game and it’s all about your puzzle solving capabilities and the simple, yet challenging, maps in the game.

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AuthorJérémie Tessier