TurnOn Review

TurnOn is a single player videogame where you control a little alien electrical spark named Turnon. He flew through the atmosphere and accidentally hit the city's power station resulting in a blackout, which made him come alive from the strong impact of the current. Turnon now has to try to restore the electricity by traveling through electric lines and boxes.

There isn't really much of a storyline per say but you guild Turnon around the city moving to different districts helping light up places that need electricity, from lamp posts to houses. When you go though a lamp post you get points which get totaled up at the end of each level, and it takes time and number of lightning bolts collected into account. In each level there is a counter that tells you how many lightning bolts you collect so you can keep track of it.

Controls are really simple - it’s just two buttons and a stick. You could use a NES controller, it’s that simple. Or if using a keyboard it's the arrow keys, or W for up and S for down with the left and right arrows.

Graphics are really smooth and not too harsh on the eyes. I did however have to turn up the brightness a little because the game is quite dark before restoring the power. I’ve played other games with the lower brightness. The music in some levels is calm and soothing at first but I found it annoying and repetitive after a while.

As you play the game you encounter two different levels; one where you move around on your own accord, the other moves you and you just have to jump up and down. I preferred the exploration levels because you can move around jumping from line to line, and I didn't feel pressured into jumping at the right moment. The levels with the scrolling screen annoyed me because it was hard to get the timing right and they also speed up, making it worse.

Another thing I didn't like about the scrolling screen was they had very few checkpoints. In the other levels the checkpoints felt more balanced and I wished there were more levels like those. I enjoyed the game because you controlled a little cute alien throughout the levels and you helped all different problems, from helping with a romantic gesture to a lady friend to a guy playing mini golf all on his own. But if it didn't have the scrolling levels I think I might of enjoyed it a bit more because they were more challenging than fun.

I think Brainy Studio have done a good job on TurnOn, but unfortunately this doesn’t set the world on fire for me. As their first Steam title, it’s an interesting idea, but I feel there could have been more to it than there is.