Format: iPhone
Release date: 24/02/09
Price: £2.99 
Official site: Zen Bound
It’s taken a while for iPhone gaming to truly grip me, but with the likes of Skybound, iDracula, Ancient Frog, and now Zen Bound, chances are that if you happen to see me, I’ll be hunched over my shiny black object. The iPhone. Obviously.
After the fast paced blasting brilliance of iDracula, Chillingo this time are bringing us a much slower paced affair. You start with a block shape, and you’re required to wind a length of rope around the wooden object which lays down paint. The ultimate intention is to splash the entity with enough colour in order to progress to the next increasingly complex puzzle.
With the rope attached via a nail to the object, and pulled via an invisible entitiy outside the screen, your task is to tilt the handset in order to change the direction of the tope, and use your fingers to twist and contort the shape in order to get the best covering for the length of rope available.
It’s incredibly simple, and to my knowledge, has absolutely no comparison in the gaming world. Rather than the stages coming complete with a wicked time limit, you’re allowed time to think, craft, and attempt complex moves in order to wrap that rope around every possible corner. The rope isn’t quite infinite, but there’s always more than enough to achieve 100% coverage.
You don’t even need to smother the entire thing to move forward. Three different stages of completion are offered, the first of which opens up new levels, where the other two can be utilised to show off your shape twisting skills to their max.
Zen Bound is one of those games that could quite easily – and probably should – find its way onto every single iPhone out in the wild. You can make slow methodical progress, and the sheer simplicity of what it offers is a major plus point. There’s absolutely no doubt that this deserves to follow in the footsteps of another Chillingo release, iDracula, to the top spot in the App Store. One of the few gaming ‘must haves’ for the iPhone.
Rating: 5/5
