Last updated on December 12th, 2025 at 08:49 pm
Koa: Journey into Ekos – Entertainment Game Review
Koa: Journey into Ekos is a Entertainment/Adventure/Puzzle game from Samuel Kushell, first launched in 10th May 2020.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 45+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Koa: Journey into Ekos Stand Out
Koa: Journey into Ekos is a puzzle platformer where you GROW the platforms.
Koa needs your help to save his home forest of Ekos! Let your imagination guide Koa: grow and cut enchanted branches to help him traverse his perilous path and free the spirits of Ekos from an insidious dark magic!
With 10 gorgeous levels to complete, each with a number of solutions bounded only by your imagination, you won't want to leave Ekos until you've freed every one of Koa's friends. And make sure to earn Gold Stars by beating each level with as few branches as possible – there might just be something in it for you…
Headphones recommended — you won't want to miss the sounds of Ekos and our beautiful score!
As a featured game of the USC Advanced Games Program, Koa was student-directed and built in a studio-simulated environment, with top-tier student teams of programmers, producers, designers, marketers, usability experts, audio designers, animators and artists. Student Art Directors from Art Center College worked with the team remotely to define the unique look of the game, with additional UI, animation, and art support coming from Cal State Fullerton and others. Music composed by Anthony Sabatino.
CREDITS:
Game Director – Sam Kushell
Lead Producer – Kevin Yan
Lead Designer – Richard Flores
Lead Engineer – Noah Koecher
Lead Usability – Fiona Cahill
Lead Audio – Joy Cheever
Art Direction – Chloe Kim, Shurong Cui
Art Producer & VFX – Madhuri Deo
Associate Producer – Dhurv Bhuta
Engineers – Joyce Zhu, Tony Xu
Designers – Burt Xu, Sheehan Ahmed
Usability Researcher – Elsa Liu
Level Artist – Kristian Bansil
Composer – Anthony Sabatino
Concept Artist – Leo Liu
UI Designer – Patricia Ho
Animation – Heidi Choi
This Entertainment game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Koa: Journey into Ekos is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 12th June 2020
Recent improvements include:
Bug fixes, UI Tweaks, Difficulty Tuning
Download & Availability
Koa: Journey into Ekos is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Koa: Journey into Ekos on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Koa brings a striking beauty to puzzle solving that few apps have achieved. We couldnt put this game down until we completed every level! We love how Koa motivates its users to think abstractly as there are dozens of ways to problem solve. Cant wait for more games from these developers.
If you have an eye for design and a sense of adventure, this game is for you. 69/69 amazing.
The music, the environment, and the physics come together beautifully to create a fun and engaging experience! We dont usually play puzzle games, but this was too fun to stop playing.
Ive been playing a ton of mobile games in quarantine and we can tell you this game is better than 99% of what Ive played. Its super cute, super polished, and super fun. The main characters sounds and voice is so cute and the music is so heartwarming. We played through the first few levels like 10 times to get gold lol The team should be incredibly proud of this- its got a lot of heart and its an amazing game by professional standards, let alone a student game. The only thing we want for is more of it to play.
This game is so cute and adorable and innovative! Hats off to the team! Youve all done amazing to create something so beautiful c:.
Cant believe this is an undergrad student project! Beautiful, challenging game. Looks & sounds gorgeous. Quick to understand & easy to play, but hard to conquer. Level difficulty increases incrementally with obstacle placement & increasing hazards that keep things interesting. Hope dev builds even more levels! And Koa is so cute.
In Koa we were able to be engaged in the journey right after downloading it. Sometimes you have to wait to see the engaging part of the app in order to actually be good enough to enjoy it, but this game was so fun from the start.
We loved how many ways you could solve each level of Koa as well as the artwork the animations are SO cute and its very easy to learn.
Koa has got to be the cutest character out there. The sound effects and concept make the game addictive. Im competitive by nature so trying to beat even the gold star count is our new favorite pastime. Wish there were more levels!!! Such an amazing game. Highly highly recommend.
Enjoyable the entire time. Getting 3 stars in each level was genuinely enjoyable and challenging, this game is worth playing.
We played this on our iPad and it was nice having a large screen to see all the cute animations. We love the platform drawing mechanic. We feel like we can be really creative with how we solve the puzzles. The game also has a good difficulty curve; each puzzle built off the last. Highly recommend.
We love that theres no singular way to beat a level – theres room for creativity in how you draw your bridges. The artwork is fantastic. We cant believe this was made by students.
Such a great game if you like puzzles. We cant put it down.
Amazing art direction with the game and a fun mechanic. Very creative concept and successfully implemented.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.06.11
- Size: 2,035.98 MB
- iOS: 9.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: Samuel Kushell
Last updated: 12th June 2020 | Genre: Entertainment, Adventure | Developer: Samuel Kushell