Joni Rokkanen, an indie developer from Finland, has released his 4th project onto Android devices. This time, Rokkanen, or Sausage Hideout as he has branded himself, is entering the puzzler scene with Totaliser: The Night Calculator. With vaporwave aesthetics, a dash of endless running, and a sick soundtrack to boot alongside some brain-teasing puzzles, this one’s got a lot going for it.
Totaliser is a good mix of two very different genres: endless runners like Temple Run or Subway Surfers and some logic-based math puzzles as well. While that may seem like it’s juggling a good bit, it actually combines these two into a nice hodgepodge of interesting mechanics that freshen up both genres.
The gameplay of Totaliser sees you enter a nice, old-school multi-coloured car and take off across a colourful 7-lane path through a neon-soaked, starlit street. As you drive, equations will pop up on the bottom of your screen, and you’ll have to piece together the missing numbers to equal out to the proper result. For example, if the equation was something like 1+?=2, you’d want to shoot for the number 1.
Here’s where it gets interesting. To get to these numbers, you’ll want to be on the corresponding path to said number. So, at least to begin with, you’ll have 1-5 on the middle lanes, and two lanes for manoeuvring around the sides. In this case, you’d want to drive on the lane that leads you to the number 1. But that’d be a bit too easy, right?
To further complicate things, you are constantly moving forward, and also on each path, there are numerous other cars driving towards you that you’ll have to bob and weave around to not collide with. So, while solving equations and trying to pick the right lane for the number – or numbers – you need to do so, you’ll also have to dodge oncoming traffic endlessly. And this process repeats ad infinitum until you collide with another car or fail the equations up to three times.
The point of Totaliser: Night Calculator is simple: get a high score that tops the leaderboards for bragging rights. It’s a very nostalgic goal – nothing too complex, and addicting enough to keep you engaged for some time. If you’d like to check it out yourself, you can download Totaliser: Night Calculator right now for free at the link below!
Looking for more brain-scratching puzzlers? Check out our Top 25 best puzzle games for Android!