Mobile Monday – Bubbles In Paradise, Little Acorns, Pyra Defense, Bowling Wizards

With another Monday comes another Mobile Monday and we’ve got a special treat this week in the form of our very first Android game review. First though we’ve got Bubble In Paradise, a word game with a twist that players of Boggle will probably enjoy. Next we’ve got Little Acorns, a surprisingly well made platformer (a rarity on the iOS devices). Then we’ve got the Android game, developed by the one-man-band of Roelof Knol, it’s a Tower Defence game that’s also a University project, Pyra Defense. Lastly we’ve got Bowling Wizards, a crazy little game that has very little to do with actual bowling.

That’s it for this week, go and download the games (especially the Android one, show some support for our future developers) and come back and tell us what you thought in the comments below.

Play some games!

Titles are available on iPhone and iPad unless specifically stated otherwise. If you like what you read, click the small black “App Store” button to load iTunes up and purchase the title!

BUBBLE IN PARADISE:

We all love a word game, there’s nothing better than sitting back and exercising your mind, seeing what words you can come up with and surprising yourself when you come out with a particularly long one. As such, there are a lot of game on the iOS App Store that cater for this. There’s games such as Words with Friends and the recently reviewed Word Trick, then Scramble with with friends and a few other variations on the Boggle theme. Then there’s Bubble In Paradise. Developed by Emian Lab, Bubble In Paradise is a game that tasks the player with finding words on the screen before it fills up with bubbles. It’s fast paced, and at times utterly crazy.

The main aim of the game in Bubble In Paradise is to stay alive as long as you can. In order to do so you must stop the screen from filling up with bubbles by popping them, and the only way to do that is by using them to spell out words. If you stood back from the game you’d imagine that it played like Boggle, requiring the player to find connecting bubbles to make their words, but that’s not the case. You can choose any bubble from any point on the screen, making the game sound much easier in concept, however, in practice that’s not really the case. Bubble In Paradise is as hard as any other word game you may have played before and due to the speed at which the bubbles appear to fill up the screen, may be even harder.

The main game mode just has the player attempt to survive until the timer runs out, which sounds simple enough (although a lot of the time it isn’t). True word lovers will be more interested in the ‘Endless’ mode which – as the name suggests – doesn’t have a timer and tasks the player with simply surviving for as long as they can. Once the screen fills up with bubbles and no more can enter, it’s game over. This mode unfortunately requires an additional purchase but if you’re truly one with words then it’ll be a fee you’re more than likely to accept. Don’t be fooled by its calming appearance though, Endless mode isn’t for the faint of heart.

The controls in the game are simple enough, just tap on the screen to select the next letter that you want to add to the word you’re spelling, tapping the letter again will remove it. This control scheme is easy to grasp for everyone, which is a good thing because, as I said earlier, everyone loves a word game, but not everyone is used to playing games. This easy method of playing the game lessons that barrier to entry and ensures that if someone isn’t playing the game, it’s because they don’t want to, not because the can’t. Sometimes the letters are even more annoyingly simple to select as the longer they’re on screen the bigger they get. This means that if you’re particularly terrible at finding words within the jumble, you can even blame your lack of dexterity.

If you’re a fan of word games there’s plenty to enjoy with Bubble In Paradise. It has visuals which are pleasing to the eye and a gameplay mechanic that’s similar enough to other games of its ilk to be familiar yet different enough to keep people interested for the long term. It’s not the best game in the world but, in terms of trying something new, you could do a lot worse.

LITTLE ACORNS:

Platforming games aren’t something that usually grace the iOS platform, they don’t really lend themselves to the on-screen analog sticks that they’re forced to use so a lot of developers tend to just leave them to the consoles, something with a controller. There have been a few examples of good platformers on the iOS devices, Storm in a Teacup instantly comes to mind when talking about well made iOS platforming games, and now Team Pesky is hoping to add to that list with the release of Little Acorns. Little Acorns is a platforming game where the goal is to collect all of the acorns (and all of the fruit if you feel so inclined) on each of the levels before moving onto the next; rinse and repeat. Does Little Acorn do the impossible and make me not absolutely hate its on-screen controls?

The aim of the game is to progress through the years (there’s currently three years) by collecting acorns and fruit from each of the levels and stashing them in your tree trunk ready for the ever encroaching onset of winter. As we all know, in the immortal words of Eddard Stark, “Winter’s coming”. These squirrels certainly know that. After having all of the acorns they were collecting stolen by the creatures of the forest it’s up to the patriarch of the family to get them all back by running, jumping and bopping his enemies on the head in true classic platforming style.

Collecting all of the acorns that litter each of the levels is the main aim of the game, and doing so will open the exit door, but collecting all of the acorns will also cause five pieces of fruit to appear. Collecting this fruit isn’t mandatory but they will generate an extra ten acorns which will go towards your total stash. The other thing that collecting all of the fruit on a level will do – and the reason most people will find themselves collecting them – is that if you manage to collect all of them on a level you’ll unlock a new costume piece to dress up your main character with. Item such as bowler hats, clown noses all the way through to tribal tattoos are up for grabs; so you better get collecting!

If you’ve been following Mobile Monday since it started then you’ll know that one of my pet hates it the on-screen control methods. The lack of any tactile feedback means that you’re not going to know if your finger accidentally slips off of the “button” causing your character to abruptly stop moving. This usually ends in rage on my part as I die for the tenth time in an area that would normally pose no problem if a trusty controller was in my hand. That never seemed to be a problem with Little Acorns, not so much that it was unplayable at least. Sure, my fingers slipped off of the buttons once or twice but it’s forgiven due to how responsive they are when you do hit them. You’re never going to get a platforming game on the iOS devices on par with a console release buy as far as I’m concerned, Little Acorns is pretty damn close.

If you’ve been itching to get your hands on a quirky little platforming game to lighten your commutes into work then Little Acorns just might be the game you’ve been looking for. Its art style leans towards the retro and the platforming aspects is one of the best you’re going to find this side of a real analog stick. As with any iOS game, you’re not breaking the bank by giving it a go either, so what are you waiting for?

PYRA DEFENSE:

With the exception of a couple of Windows Phone 7 reviews a while back, almost all of my mobile reviews have been for the iOS. I’m going to change that today. With the Android operating system quickly approaching the kind of install base that iOS have been enjoying almost since the first iPhone it’s not surprising to find that a lot of developers are leaning towards the notoriously more open Android marketplace. You can program Android apps in Java, and compile them on a PC without any strange hacks, unlike iOS. Roelof Knol has developed an Android game as part of his university work and that’s the game we’re going to look at today. Pyra Defense is a tower defence game with a more retro, vector drawn look to it which is all well and good as long as it doesn’t play like one too. But does it?

As you would expect from any tower defence game, the gameplay revolves around trying to stop the creeps that are emerging from a singular point on the map from entering your base on the other side. In order to do this you must place towers in their path in order divert them to the place you want them to go; all while relentlessly shooting them in an effort to prevent them reaching your base. The towers themselves are easy enough to distinguish once you’ve played the game for a while. They’re all pyramids of some description, some of them are yellow and small, some of them are orange and other still are huge yellow pyramids. The fact that all of the towers look the same, except for subtle differences, is a nice touch, it helps to maintain the retro feel of the game on the whole while making each of the towers instantly identifiable at a glance.

There are quite a few bugs with the game but a lot of them aren’t too in your face (with the exception of the achievements page which just seems broken in parts) and it’s easy to forgive these small problems when you realise that the whole game is designed and developed by a single person. Of course there are going to be issues, the poor guy is trying to study at the same time as developing this pretty impressive game, but all of the issues I came across wouldn’t have been obvious if it wasn’t for my trained bug-spotting eyes.

The controls are easy enough to learn, especially if you’ve played a mobile tower defence game before. All the player has to do is tap on the screen where they want to place their currently selected tower. Suddenly it’ll magically appear and, if there are any enemies in the immediate vicinity, will start attacking. Players also have the ability to upgrade their towers depending on how much money they’ve got to spend (which is obtained through the killing of creeps). Tapping on a pre-existing tower will bring up a menu allowing the player to either upgrade or sell. Mastering the various tactics regarding these options in particular can be the difference between success and utter, shameful defeat.

As far as tower defence games go Pyra Defense is neither the best, nor the best looking, but it is a testament to one young developers abilities. Pyra Defense is a fun, addictive little game with nice retro leanings. Plenty of achievements will keep even the hardiest of defenders busy and playing for a long time to come; there’s even a free version so what are you waiting for? Grab the game from the Android Marketplace by clicking here.

BOWLING WIZARDS:

Naming apps on the iOS App Store is something I go on about on a fairly regular basis. I think that if you’re naming something that’s going to appear in a marketplace that caters pretty much exclusively to the impulse buyer (which is essentially what the iOS App Store is) then the name of your application should be descriptive enough to let the potential buyer know what they’re getting in to. It’s because a lot of people tend to ignore this that I downloaded Bowling Wizards thinking it was going to be some form of bowling game, perhaps with a fantasy overlay. That’s not the case. That being said though, it’s not all bad, the game does include bowling in some way, just not in the way anybody will have been expecting. Bowling Wizards, developed by Next Wave Multimedia, is a strategy-esque game where the player is tasked with knocking evil pins down with your bowling balls of righteousness (there’s a joke in there somewhere).

In order to complete a level in Bowling Wizards, your only task is to knock down all of the evil pins, releasing them from the grasp of the evil wizard, and turning them back into good pins. You’ve got a couple of objects at your disposal that will help you get rid of those pesky pins, namely in the form of the objects in your inventory that perform special actions on your bowling balls (stop sniggering at the back). These “special actions” can take multiple forms, some of them change the direction of the bowling ball, some split them in two and send them hurtling in the opposite direction, and some perform other tasks. The aim for the player is to utilise these objects in such a way that it allows you to know down all the pins in the level and allowing you to continue through the game.

The controls in Bowling Wizards are easy enough to grasp, all the player has to do is drag the apparatus that they wish to use into the “battlefield”, rotate it so that it’s facing in the direction the you want it to go in, which will usually be towards the pins or towards another piece of equipment that will perform an action on the bowling ball(s), and then start the ball rolling. In order to get the bowling ball moving the player must place a finger onto it and then slide across the touch screen in the direction that they want to send the ball; letting go of the touch screen will then set the bowling ball in motion. The controls are indeed easy enough to grasp but the can be difficult to get the most out off. Placing the objects into the game’s world doesn’t usually pose a problem but rotating them does, depending on how big your digits are.

The points at which you grab the objects in order to turn them can be quite small making operating them difficult sometimes. Thankfully all of the controls are extremely intuitive so even though you might have problems tapping some of the on-screen items, you’ll never find yourself confused as to what you’re supposed to be doing, or how you’re supposed to be playing.

Bowling Wizards is a mildly entertaining game with a story that makes little to no sense. The introductory animation is well made however, and tries to explain what’s going on, but he faux movie style of it will make people laugh instead of paying attention to the plot of the game that it’s attempting to convey. That being said, the gameplay is relatively fun at times, it’s something original if nothing else, although it can get a little repetitive at times. Worth a download if you’re looking for something a little bit different; just don’t expect a bowling game.