Guide a river to the sea in meditative new Roia game [Awesome Apps]

• Reviews

New game Roia challenges players to guide a river down a mountain by rearranging the terrain. It’s another unique premise from Emoak, a team of developers with a history of creating standout games.

I spent a couple of hours playing it on my iPhone, and found the game to be demanding but also relaxing. And not like anything I’ve played before.

Roia game review: The way of water

As much as I love games where the goal is to run down a hallway cutting down everything that moves, or matching three gems/flowers/whatever to complete a puzzle, I can get pulled into a game that’s really different from the usual genres. And that describes Roia quite well.

It starts with a stream of water tricking down the side of a mountain. Your goal is to direct this river to where it needs to go. You accomplish this by lifting up the land or lowering it down, thereby guiding the flow where you want it. And those are the only controls you have.

Part of what makes Roia simultaneously relaxing and challenging is that there’s no single right answer. Your guide is a small bird that flies over the requested route. How you rearrange the terrain to follow that route is up to you. And the bird is not specific — as long as the water is going in generally the right area, it’s all good.

But there is a goal for the stream to reach, and you don’t get to progress to additional levels if you don’t get the water where it’s supposed to go.

It’s not about the score

“The game’s unity of gameplay, graphics and music creates an immersive and relaxing atmosphere,” says the developer, Emoak.

One of the ways Roia tries to relax you is that there’s no time limit and no score. You have as much time as you need, and as long as the river gets to the goal, you won. Calming, gentle piano music plays in the background.

But to, be clear, the game is not too easy. I don’t find such games relaxing — I get bored in a few minutes and delete them. I’m keeping this one around.

Roia final thoughts

I find this game fun without being too demanding. It’s the only one I’ve ever played where I have to think about how to move the terrain around. And like that I don’t lose if I don’t pay attention to it for a few seconds.

Roia by Anna and Tobias at Emoak launched Tuesday. It costs $2.99 — and it’s cheap at that price. It’s a one-time purchase, with no unwelcome tracking or nagging to make in-app purchases. There are versions for iPhone, iPad and Android.

Buy it from: App Store

Buy it from: Play Store

Emoak also created Lyxo in 2021, which Cult of Mac called “one of the most aesthetically beautiful games to arrive in the App Store for quite a while.”

Ed Hardy

Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 26 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh SE/30 (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer.

That’s because he’s a “tablet first” type of guy. Rather than use a Macbook, he connects a keyboard case to the iPad. And instead of a desktop Mac, he connects his tablet to a 27-inch display and full-size keyboard. (So don’t try to tell him that everyone has to use a Mac to be productive.)

Before coming to Cult of Mac, Ed wrote for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview and Brighthand, as well as other sites.