Play this: ‘Eliss Infinity’ makes one of the iPhone’s first hits even better

It’s hard to remember now, but once upon a time developers seemed to struggle with the idea of touchscreen gaming. It took a few early, creative games for the iPhone to really show the potential for touch, and Eliss was one of those games. It tasked players with moving planets around, mashing them together, and splitting them up, all while trying to move them to like colored portals. It’s a simple concept, but when you factor in the different sizes of the portals and planets, obstacles like planet-destroying suns, and the fact that different colors can’t touch, it makes for an incredibly challenging game. You’ll often find yourself using as many fingers as possible just to get through a level.

Eliss Infinity is sort of like a polished remake of the original — it includes all of the same levels with some much welcome gameplay tweaks, like an early-collision detection system that makes it easier to plan ahead. More importantly, it also features a brand new mode that manages to make the game even harder. The titular Infinity mode is essentially an endless version of Eliss, where planets of different colors pop up quickly and you have to act fast to prevent the screen from filling up. If you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself dying almost as quickly as in games like Super Hexagon. For fans of the original Eliss, it lets you experience the game in a whole new way. “It’s the Eliss I wish I could have released on day one,” creator Steph Thirion says of Infinity. You can check it out in the App Store for $2.99.