E-Motion
Alternative title: The Game of Harmony  (US)  ,   Sphericule  (Amiga UK)
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
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This strategic action puzzle game features original gameplay. You control a spacecraft situated on a globe which you can rotate and move around the screen. You must knock globes into others of the same colour, to rid the screen of all the globes. The screen has no borders, so globes can be pushed off the side of the screen, increasing your tactical range. Knocking globes of different colors into each other produces smaller pods which need to be picked up quickly, giving you energy, or they will turn into globes and you will have to get rid of them too. Many of the globes are linked to other globes (or the ship) via string, and the level layouts include barriers as obstacles (and ricochet points), making the Newtonian physics more complex.50 Levels.

Trivia

At one point, an English company called Darkhex was working on a Playstation 1 version of E-Motion, but the project was canceled.

Due to it not having color, in the Game Boy's case, or not being able to display enough colors on screen, in the ZX Spectrum's case, these versions did not have multi-colored spheres. Instead, they had spheres with different shapes within them, such as squares, triangles or circles.

The E in E-Motion stands for "Einstein". A caricature of Albert Einstein appears on the cover of the European box, and on the loading screen for most versions. 

Assembly Line did a sequel of sorts to this game, Vaxine (published by U.S. Gold), taking the game into 3D, but running it successfully on current computers is more of a challenge.

The Game of Harmony was marketed in the US as a Zen device -- a game that rewards you for relaxing and staying calm under pressure. (See Company Line for specifics.) However, the game was universally frustrating at times, so this particular marketing angle was quite ironic. Of my own personal experience of working in a retail software store at the time this game was published, I can remember almost every single copy of Harmony being returned by frustrated gamers.


http://www.mobygames.com/game/game-of-harmony
