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I’m not sure about you, but I’m getting on in years, and my fingers, after years of keyboard-based gaming, are turning a little bit arthritic. I know, that’s an incredibly bizarre introduction to an article, but it’s a highly relevant one, and you’ll appreciate it when I tell you more about SPiNG.
SPiNG, the latest release from indie development team SMG Studio (the same developers currently working on LEGO Party), is a game in which you spin your little spikey ball around hand-crafted levels by grabbing onto pivot points as you fly past them. The biggest draw? You only need a single button to play. One finger, that’s it. Hell, I’m confident my cat could play SPiNG if he had the brain capacity to sit down and concentrate on it long enough without getting distracted by dust on a sunbeam.
For those wondering, SPiNG is a combination of the words ‘spin’ and ‘swing’, and possibly the most appropriate name for the game.
A hard reset for your brain
It’s tempting, I know, to hyperfocus and really try to think about what you’re doing in SPiNG. I started that way, plotting my route and carefully maneuvering my spikey ball around the maze to try and come up with the optimal route that would let me pick up all the glowing diamonds as efficiently as possible.
Don’t do that.
SPiNG is best enjoyed by… Switching off. Not the game, obviously, you kind of need that, but your brain. Even then, I made sure I grabbed every single glowing diamond in chapter one, which had me dying more time than I like to admit, but then I hit chapter two and, suddenly, those diamonds didn’t matter quite as much as the journey to pick them up.
How do I explain this properly? It’s like bubble wrap. After unwrapping a package, if you’re a weirdo like me, you take great pleasure in twisting up the bubble wrap to hear the pops, but you don’t spend hours trying to make sure every bubble is popped, right? That’s what SPiNG ended up being for me. The diamonds are nice, but the feeling of flinging my little ball through the air was better.
Although with that said, it does feel really satisfying when you have a perfect run. It’s honestly a little obscene.
Levels, modes, and features out the wazoo
SPiNG features over 1,000 fully hand-crafted levels, varying in difficulty, and each available in different modes. There’s the Classic mode, which is the relaxing one, as well as Rush, Lost, One Chance, and ‘Play Perfect’ modes. All of these different modes come with their own additional requirements to earn the full three stars, which does get a little stressful at times, but there’s still a strange sense of relaxation, even when you’ve died 10 times on the same level.
My favorite mode, by far, is Zen mode. It’s basically endless play, with countless pivot points for you to grab and even more diamonds for you to pick up. You can hop into Zen mode at any point after reaching around the middle of chapter 3 in Classic mode, and you’re free to come and go as you please, watching the number of diamonds you’ve gathered creep upwards day by day. Plus, it’s really useful when it comes to perfecting your arcs.
On top of everything else (which is already impressive enough), SPiNG has a daily challenge mode, challenging players to compete for the quickest time. I’m not delusional enough to expect myself to ever even come close to the top of the leaderboard, but it is fun trying.
SMG Studios has also collaborated with artists to come up with unique designs for the ball that you’ll end up flinging around the different levels. Artists such as Momo, Tessa Dabney, and Scott Vanden Bosch all have their own ‘themes’ and not only does each theme come with a ball design, but a unique soundtrack created by composer Stafford Bawler, who some may recognize from his work on Monument Valley.
There are over 70 balls to collect, and if you know nothing else about me by now, then you should know that I love collectables.
Whether you’re after a game to help you zone out or you want to be challenged, the various modes of SPiNG will offer you exactly what you’re looking for. The full game is available to buy from June 19, 2025, on PC via Steam, with hopes for full Steam Deck verification soon.
