Are we very big or very small? In Lifelike, I can never quite work it out. Are we moving suns through distant stretches of space, sweeping up dust clouds and planets and chunks of wandering rock as we go? Or are we tiny electrons orbiting nuclei, fertilised eggs seeking purchase?
This is the pleasure of a game that focuses on sheer interaction. You are one particle and you move around searching for others. Some come in big clumps that fidget and spasm and chase after you. Some set off fireworks chains that race around the sky leading you onwards.
It is so easy to get drawn in here, to be lost amongst the stars or the atoms or the eggs or whatever they are. And in truth this is exactly the sort of thing I hoped for from Apple Arcade, a great mesmerising thing that is given the chance to be only itself, untroubled by ads or add-ons. Plug in headphones and load this one up. It is extraordinary.
