ABRISS Review

As children one of our most favourite things would be to build things, at times, painstakingly for hours on end. We would build things out of LEGO, Meccano or sand, letting our imaginations run wild. But after that what is left? Well, it would be destroyed, putting a story to this act of destruction and mayhem. An earthquake? An alien invasion? Or just a god-like hand pulverising the buildings around them? It’s that process which is all part of our childhood. 

ABRISS – build to destroy uses this sanctifying template. It’s a strange – yet amazing – game where you can build and destroy to your heart’s content. Let’s play. 

ABRISS hasn’t any story to speak of, and that’s because at its heart it is a puzzle game. But the world that the puzzles are set in is full of strange lands with the most brutalist buildings and alien-type atmospheres. Who built these towers or structures? Who is living here? Why do they need to be destroyed? You will never get the answers to these questions so you’ll be best left to make your narratives up. It doesn’t need a prescribed story though, as it works perfectly in its own way. 

There is a campaign mode to explore, an endless mode which focuses on high score gathering, and a sandbox mode. As you’d expect, that will let you create and destroy at will. Wherever you play, the premise of ABRISS is simple, focusing on structures in the world with some red glowing orbs in the middle, on top, or hidden away inside the buildings. Your job is to build a structure from a limited number of construction items so that when you press play the structure you build will fall onto the building, destroying it and the glowing orbs. All clear? Don’t worry if not because it is a very simple and enjoyable premise. 

In the campaign mode, you are treated to seven different worlds to explore, each with loads of stages within that world. ABRISS starts off simple, with quite straightforward building blocks. Of course, new items are added and new structures emerge. For example, at the start, you have tower structures to build on top of each other, with connecting cubes attaching them. Then there are heavy cubes that topple the structure forward so it falls onto the building you want to destroy. 

As you progress through the games you get new building items; boosters, bombs, heavy ultra blocks, and lasers. The combination of how you use these items and what you create is completely up to you. It’s here where ABRISS excels and there are many different combinations available to get the job done. But the puzzle elements come in trying to work out how to destroy everything in front of you. It’s very addictive, in the way you will fail and fail again. But when you do find the right creation – and things work – then pure joy is the only conclusion. 

The controls work very well in ABRISS. I did find the camera to be a bit of a pain at times, and never did I get close enough to the action, and that means connections may be missed. On the whole though, things are fine in ABRISS. Although if you are looking for a bit of a story, a reason, you’ll be left lost. For me, it didn’t matter one jot. 

Much of the reason behind that is because in ABRISS, the main element, the thing that never grows old in the visual department, are the destruction mechanics. It’s stunning to watch structures crumble, as a domino effect kicks in; matter onto matter is a thing of beauty at all times. I liked the different worlds as well, whilst the strange alien landscapes, contraptions and physics always appealed. It’s an evocative game, beautifully created. And better still, it feels completely different to anything else you might play. 

At its heart, ABRISS is a simple puzzle game where the task is very clear and can be explained in two minutes. But it is the complexity in the designs, and of how you approach the game, that gives it legs and mileage. The endless and sandbox modes give amazing possibilities for the future, but if I was highly critical I would say that ABRISS can get quite fiddly and a teeny bit annoying in moments. 

Overall, ABRISS – build to destroy is well worth experiencing, if only because you get the chance to become an ultimate destroyer of worlds.