Review: Zen Bound 2 Universal is a post from: Best Iphone Apps Review Website
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
- Price: $2.99 (Download here)
- Version: 2.0.0
- Official Site: Secret Exit
Zen Bound 2 is the type of activity a psychologist would ask a patient to perform during an examination. Wrapping shapes in twine is quite a subdued task. It’s interpretive, reflective, and it relaxes the mind.
The physical act of binding a wooden object, which occasionally creaks like the hull of an old ship, rests in direct opposition to the accompanying thought process. As the piece becomes entangled, the mind slowly unwinds.
According to Freud, the unconscious is reason’s seething, dingy underbelly where the urges that guide thought reside; it’s a murky, primordial ocean swirling with misplaced memories and submersed desires. The evocative puzzles in Zen Bound 2 serve as a vessel to this bizarre whirlpool of a place.
The game starts out innocently enough, having the player wrap some familiar-looking animal shapes in rope while they grow accustomed to the game. It’s a war of attrition. The player is given a limited amount of rope and is asked to keep wrapping it around the animal shapes until a certain percentage of the surface is covered.
The rules quickly become second-nature. Here, most games would introduce some new wrinkle to keep our minds tuned in, but Zen Bound leads our thoughts astray. The objects change from animal shapes to anthropomorphic statues, and suddenly a cheerful round of wrap-the-frog shifts into something altogether more sinister.
Players find themselves trapped in the odd dream of a bondage fetishist. Were these bog-people willing participants? Do they get off on being wrapped up like a mummy? Would they insert needles in their skin and hang from the ceiling? Are they to be tarred and feathered?
The beauty, and mystery, of Zen Bound is in how it ever-so-casually solicits latent feelings, and in some cases horrors, from the user. It’s at times unsettling, but it’s always compelling how the unconscious will slowly creep up on you.
One minute, you’ll find yourself doing something harmless like lassoing a UFO out of the sky, and the next, you’ll confront an ill of humanity as the puzzle will look a hell of a lot like you are baiting a bear.
It’s genius how the game tricks the player into performing such an atrocity, not only because it draws attention to an important issue like animal cruelty, but because it makes us look inside ourselves and find the tiny shred of resemblance that’s necessary for compassion.
There’s also a final set of levels in which you entwine cameos of recognizable characters from other indie games. Ah, well. No one ever claimed the unconscious was necessarily morbid and disturbing.
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[Continuing a series of interviews with 2010 IGF Mobile finalists, FingerGaming speaks to Jetro Lauha and Jani Kahrama of developer Secret Exit, whose iPhone game Stair Dismount is competing in the Best Mobile game category, having won the IGF Mobile award for Technical Achievement.]
How did the initial concept come about?
Who would’ve guessed that one of the biggest App Store hits thus far would involve wrapping string around a wooden object? Apparently the success of the original 
Secret Exit recently lowered the price of both Zen Bound and Stair Dismount to celebrate being featured by Apple. Zen Bound has been in the app store since February, and is widely considered a showpiece app on the iPhone. It received our highest recommendation upon release, and is currently $1.99.
:: NO PAIN NO GAIN
For their follow-up to the critically acclaimed Zen Bound, Secret Exit has reached back into their past to bring the Dismount series to the iPhone. The original Stair Dismount game was released in 2002, followed by Truck Dismount a year later, and has been heralded as one of the first games to utilize ragdoll physics. Whereas Zen Bound is beautiful and mesmerizing, Stair Dismount is decidedly more humorous and cathartic, and it shares some of the same level of polish necessary to turn a simple idea into something much more engaging.
Besides the ability to share in-game photos, you can also choose to place a photo of someone’s face on the dummy before playing. You can use a picture from your photo albums, or again tap into Facebook to grab one of your friends’ mug-shots. It is the little touches like this that elevate Stair Dismount from similar games of this genre, although it would be nice to be able to save your favorite face selections. A special mention should go to the sound as well, which is very satisfying throughout, and decidedly cringe-inducing when you score a big fall.