iPad apps review - iRepton

I loved Repton back in the 80's on the BBC micro, and the idea of playing it on the iPad appealed to me (see my earlier blog post about which retro games I'd like to see ported) so I was delighted to stumbled across this little gem with a search of


the app store for the word "retro". It's perhaps humbling to realise that ones teenage years are now seen as retro, but any how...

Anyone who's plays rubble trouble or any number of similar games will know the idea behind Repton. Move your character around a 2d map collecting gems with gravity acting on certain object such that they fall down the screen if nothing is supporting them. Repton includes eggs which break to hatch into monsters that chase you and can only be killed by either dropping a rock on them or pushing a rock into them horizontally. It also includes keys which turn safes into gems. Where safes have a flat top and rocks can rest on them, rocks will slide off the top of gems unless soil or something else is in the way. Thus, getting a key can trigger rocks or eggs elsewhere in the map to fall.

The other thing to know is that with a rock on your head, you can do the "Repton shuffle" to quickly step aside and back to allow the rock to fall AND push it to one side - vital for many of the puzzles in the maps.

This implementation of the game can use the same mode 5 graphics of the BBC micro as in the screen shot or updated 'better' graphics. The new graphics add nothing to the game play and defeat the retro object of the game for me so are rather wasted, but I guess might appeal to people for whom this is a new experience.

The game also includes the same old music and sounds or updated versions of these too. The music was good for it's time on a home computer in 1984 ish but even then, it quickly became irritating and thankfully there is the same option to disable it that I always used back then!

The first set of maps are included from the old game (Repton 3 maps I think it is rather than Repton 1, but I can't be sure of my memory on that), but also additional new levels and further additional levels are available as in app purchases.

It doesn't appear to include the level editor which made this game so compelling for my mother and I - creating levels to challenge each other, and I doubt it's likely to see me dreaming in Repton graphics which I often did back then, but it is a welcome addition to the casual games I can pick up and play for a few minutes on the iPad, and for that it's worth the asking price :)

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