Developer/Publisher:  Cipher Prime/EA Mobile
Genre:  Puzzle
Price:  $2.99
Acquired:  Review Copy Provided
Verdict:  If you only own one iPhone game, this should be it.
Pros:  The flawless distillation of fun into binary code: addictive, difficulty scales well, visuals are elegant and the music a delight.
Cons:  None.

Electronic Arts brings Auditorium, Cipher Prime’s Flash-based puzzle game, to the iPhone and iPod touch, and it is wonderful. The object of Auditorium is, at its most basic, to guide the flow of particles.  A flowing stream of music particles must be manipulated to reach a destination, a music basket.  When enough particles from the stream flow into the basket, a single instrumental voice – a piano, string section, or the like – begins to play.  Multiple baskets in the same puzzle play different sounds, and each harmonizes with the other(s), so as more baskets are filled, increasingly sophisticated, musically lush, soundscapes are created.

You manipulate the stream using tools via touchscreen: initially, directional arrows that redirect the flow up, down, left, or right, but as you advance though the game’s five Acts (EA says 25 levels, total, but I count thirty), other controls are added that attract, repulse, speed up, or deflect the flow.  More sophisticated puzzles include obstacles, like color spheres.  Some baskets are colored, and to fill them, the music stream must first pass through a same-colored sphere.  Doing so causes the stream to change to that color, and only then can it fill basket(s) of the same color.

Auditorium has a lot in common with Portal, Valve’s genre bending hit: both are fun and difficult in many of the same ways, and scratch many of the same entertainment itches.  Both have, at times, more than one way to solve their puzzles, both are challenging without being frustrating, and as you progress, both introduce more and more elements to keep pushing you to think differently.  Oh, and both represent about the purest distillation of fun into an electronic gaming format, ever.  Like Portal, the replay value is not very great, unless you enjoy looking for alternate solutions, but EA has a solution for that: you can purchase up to three additional “Movements” with Acts 6-18 (16 levels, and adds Repel, Split, and yes – even Portal), Acts 9-11 (14 levels, and adds the Deflect obstacle), and Acts 12-15 (17 levels, and adds Black Holes), for $0.99 per Movement.

Auditorium is perfect for this platform: the tools are simply positioned by touch, the music is soothing and not grating like an afterthought soundtrack, the visuals are hypnotic, and it doesn’t try to stuff a game into a format that doesn’t really work (like, oh, I don’t know, say, for example, a shooter).

There is a free demo, if you aren’t sure whether you’d enjoy Auditorium, give the demo a try.  Like Monique said in Better Off Dead, “I think all you need is a small taste of success, and you will find it suits you.” If you find that Auditorium does suit you, you may agree that if you could only own one iPhone or iPod touch game, Auditorium should be that game.