Block holes, the gravity well left behind by a dead star, draw into them everything from dust particles, to light, to milkshake. Under immense force a black hole will crush those particles down into super dense molecules. Picture the densest, darkest brownie you’ve ever eaten – the kind with big chocolate chunks in it – that’s nothing like a black hole but it’s hardly wasted time to think about a chocolate brownie.
Way to Singularity puts you in the pilots of a ship aiming right for the centre of such an entity (a black hole, not a brownie), and it’s great fun. It’s free, too.
The game is split into two stages, matter and particles. Matter has you gripping to the inside wall of a wireframe tube, using the arrow keys to rotate around the surface to dodge obstacles. The obstacles are thick black castellations that rise out of the ground, like teeth running along the inside of a worm’s gut. It’s the far more enjoyable of the two stages.
Particles is akin to a shmup with its dozens of black dots that pour out from the centre of the black hole and fill the screen with detritus to dodge. Whereas the first stage is relaxing, this second stage is frustrating.
Jump in and start playing Way to Singularity on its preview page.
It may be due to change (this is only a preview version, after all) but I like how the game comes without music. The silence that’s only broken by a drawn out whoooosh noise as you pass the dense black teeth is engaging, more engaging than the music that’s attached to particle mode’s flash game.
Another teething issue is that the game countsdown to start. When it takes a couple of seconds to come across your first obstacle there is no need for a countdown, especially one as slow as this, after each restart.
Still, those are minor niggles in light of a great free game.