Price: $9.99 (£5.99)

Description: A Soothing Pottery Creator

App Store Link

Rating

Pros: Photorealistic visuals, campaign contracts, versatility, a ton of brushes to buy and use.

Cons: Not too smooth controls, can get repetitive, could use some online functionality.

Advised Control Method: Mouse (trackpad cautioned)

Review

One of the many advantages of gaming is that it can make unappealing and inaccessible hobbies much more appealing. Making pottery for instance. No you don’t need to do classes, wear dirty overalls and get your hands covered in clay to create a beautiful hand-made masterpiece of ceramics. Let’s Create! Pottery does this, and does it well. It fuses the accomplishment of creating and decorating your own ceramics with an amazing art-style and good object versatility.

Let’s Create! Pottery enables you to create an imaginative vase or mug from just a sticky lump of clay. After shaping your clay into whatever shape you want, the item is then fired and from there you can colour and decorate the shape. Once the pottery is complete you can either sell it or keep it in your collection.

The in-game money can be used to buy new patterns, materials and colours to use on new creations.

What impresses me to no end is the versatility you have in creating your pottery. Even though you can really only make a tall, round shape from the clay you are given, there are loads of different patterns, covering different styles, colours and handles and lids to add. Your imagination is the limit.

But creating pottery from your imagination isn’t the only thing you can do, and if it was the case I could see Let’s Create! Pottery getting old fast. The game includes a campaign where you are given contracts to create certain items according to a photograph. You are then ranked on how well you have replicated the shape and subsequently paid for your hard work. Ignoring the fact that you always seem to make a loss, as you are required to buy new patterns to complete a project, the campaign works very well and keeps you playing even if your imaginative side hasn’t woken up yet.

Despite these features, Let’s Create! Pottery still has a lot of potential which it sort of fails to fulfil. An online component where you are actually able to sell and buy shapes with other real people would be excellent. At the moment, there really isn’t any reason to keep any shapes you make other than to stare vainly at it.

An online component could also compliment the fact that the current fake auction house doesn’t have any taste. What I mean to say is that, unlike a human, the computer calculates the item’s worth through variables. Like how big the shape is, how much colour or how many decorations it has. You could just plaster a whole lot of crap onto the pottery and it would still sell for hundreds.

But even so, Let’s Create! Pottery isn’t one to take seriously. It is a game where you just chill out, listen to the soothing springtime sound effects and let your imagination ride. This is only helped by its photorealistic art style which makes you want to reach out and touch your smooth creation.

The iOS version of Let’s Create! Pottery enabled you to drag with your finger to physically mould the clay. This worked very well, and safe to say the mouse can’t quite replicate this tactile formula. Nevertheless, it still works, but just isn’t as interactive.

Even so, Let’s Create! Pottery is a relaxing game that does a great job at letting you create your own pottery, without the mess. The presentation is top-notch and even though it may not have fulfilled its full potential, it is a good game to get your hands on.

Gameplay Video