Sin or Win Review

Sin or Win is a different kind of god game. Players are given the opportunity to either kill a never-ending stampede of cavemen by throwing them into a pit of fire, or pop them up merrily on their way to fluffy clouds in order to ascend to heaven. “Winning” the game requires the latter action, but the game is happy to give players the choice to “sin,” ending the lives of the innocent cavemen if they so wish. Each dead caveman adds a clump of bones to the pit. In order to continue winning, as there is no real ending, the player must keep the pit from filling with lava.

Sounds simple enough, but the means with which the cavemen are dispatched, whether to win or to sin, gets very hectic, very quickly. The cavemen come from both sides of the screen where two skeletons usher the poor loincloth wearing men to their death. It is your job to swipe them up to one or more small clouds that will eventually rise to heaven. The longer the cavemen stay afloat, the more points they are worth, so the game becomes a juggling act to see how long the cavemen can stay in the air before another careens off of the cliff, requiring attention before falling into a pit of fiery bones. Gathering enough points will also award bonuses such as wings or protective bouncy ball shells for the cavemen.

There is also a day/night cycle to keep track of. At night, the devil (who sits at the bottom of the screen waiting calmly in a business suit) thinks up destructive elements to impede the player’s progress, such as storms clouds, monsters, and UFOs. One enemy, the fire-breathing dragon, serves a double purpose. Should he reach the cloud, he will barbecue passing cavemen, but if the player swipes him into the fire, he will destroy some of the bone pile.

Sin or Win takes a few minutes to warm up to, but it’s entirely worth a download. Toxic Blob takes one of the most attractive features of Pocket God, and builds a full game out of it, one that will leave gamers desperately clawing at the screen in an attempt to save these unbelievably dumb cavemen. The occasional swipe will fail to register and getting a high score while “sinning” might be a little too difficult, but this addictive game is too much fun to ignore.

iPad Screenshots

Read more: sin-win-review