Mobile Monday – Disco Kitten, de Blob: Revolution, Tesla Wars HD, Word Fusion

It’s time for another Mobile Monday here at GodisaGeek.com, the weekly article where we take a look at four mobile games, be they iOS, Windows Phone or even PlayStation Vita/Nintendo 3DS, and tell you whether or not they’re worth your precious time and money.

This week we’re looking at Disco Kitten from Chillingo and IJ Software, which is a game that’s difficult to describe in a single line; pure madness is about as close as I can get. Tesla Wars HD is a tapping frenzy game that will have you hooked after the first level, Word Fusion is an interesting little word puzzle game with a little bit of a twist, and finally we’ve got a Window Phone 7 game, de Blob: Revolution which is difficult, entertaining and addictive all at the same time.

As usual, carry on reading to read the full review of each game, go download them and come back to tell us your views on each of them in the comments below.

Get downloading and get playing and we’ll see you again next week with four more 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!

DISCO KITTEN:

Very few games that make their way onto the iOS App Store make me wonder what the gameplay of the title could possibly entail. However, that’s exactly what I thought when I saw Disco Kitten drop into my Mobile Monday inbox. Was it going to be a music rhythm game? Was it going to be something entirely different altogether? There was only one way to find out. Disco Kitten is published by Chillingo and developed by IJ Software and challenges the player to collect enough energy to fill the container/cat on the left hand side of the screen. Sounds simple enough, but after a couple of stages you’ll be ready to give up; only you won’t be able to.

When you first start Disco Kitten you’ll be treated to a little tutorial level, something to get you used to what the game is going to be throwing at you for the next couple of levels. Things start off easy enough, all the player has to do is tap the platforms in front of the vessels, which will be filling up with energy throughout the level, in an attempt to drain them. Collect all the energy that you need and you’ll progress the next level with how quickly you do it, combined with how many times you die while attempting to do so, contributing to your final score for the game.

As well as the main game mode there’s also a ‘Survival’ mode where the aim of the game is to survive as long as you can, collecting as much energy as you can along the way. Every so often a gold coin will spawn and collecting these will give you the currency that’s needed to buy things in the game’s shop, power-ups that will serve to make the game slightly easier. Slightly being the operative word, no matter how many power-ups you manage to obtain for yourself there’s still going to be an element of skill required in order to get to the end of the game with the maximum amounts of points possible.

The controls of Disco Kitten are easy to use but you do have to have quick reflexes if you’re going to get the most out of the game. While it’s a game that’s very easy to play, only requiring a single finger to be used at any one time, it is a game that’s extremely difficult to master, especially on the later levels. If you’re going to get the most out of the game then you’re going to have to have your wits about you, watching everything at once to be ready to change the position of the main character at a moment’s notice. It’s not a game for the faint of heart but once you’ve got everything down to an art you’ll be clearing the levels like a pro.

Disco Kitten is something a little bit different in a world of extremely samey iOS games that’s a rare thing. The visuals are gorgeous, and will get you to keep coming back to the game again and again just to see them. Not to mention the main character reminds me of the EDF character from the new adverts, that alone make me laugh every single time I start the game up. Disco Kitten definitely comes under the category of “Easy to play, difficult to master” but it makes no bones about it, it’s a difficult game, especially at the later levels, and it seems extremely proud of that fact. Good on you Disco Kitten, keep on dancing the night away.

DE BLOB: REVOLUTION:

We don’t review as many games as I’d like on the Windows Phone 7 devices. It’s not that the games aren’t there, they are, and with a lot of them having Xbox LIVE integration those people that already have an Xbox LIVE account may actually prefer them. The only reason that I don’t write about more of them is that there are so many games on the iOS store, with more and more being added every single week, that it’s difficult to find the time to look at another operating system. de Blob: Revolution is one of those Windows Phone 7 games that captured my attention when I saw it on the Marketplace, and has managed to keep my attention over the course of the last week at least; but why?

The first thing about de Blob: Revolution is the fact that the game essentially never ends. Mobile games are notoriously a little bit short, which is understandable considering that a lot of them will be downloaded over a cellular network, but de Blob: Revolution has managed to get around the problem of having a short game by designing the game in such a way that you never have to put it down if you don’t want to. You can literally play it over and over again until your battery runs out.

The point of the game is to run around a selection of floors within a building collecting the various members of the community and exiting the level through the handy little hole that’s placed somewhere in each stage. The only rule that you need to know is that you can’t cross over the same square twice, which means that you’ve got to collect all of the citizens and get out of the level with a single line. The faster you complete each level, and eventually the entire building, the more points you’ll be awarded with upon the building’s completion. All in all it’s an extremely fun game that a lot of people will find difficult to put down. I’ll be honest, the only thing that forces me to put it down most of the time is the fact that if I don’t I’ll be missing my stop on the train.

The controls of the game are simple to use too, due to the fact that the gameplay involves creating a single line to collect all of the citizens and get to the end of the floor, you’re only going to need a single finger to play the entire game. If you’re able to play any other mobile games (which is most people) then you’re going to be able to enjoy de Blob: Revolution. Be warned though, things might start off simple but they soon take a turn for the more difficult.

If you’re looking for a fantastically competent game to add to your Windows Phone 7 repertoire then de Blob: Revolution should be that game. The gameplay is addictive, the visuals are bright and attractive and the fact that the game could literally never end if you don’t want it to means that you’re getting great value for your money (which, you have to admit, is a little steep on pretty much all Windows Phone 7 games, especially those with Xbox LIVE built into them). Grab the game, save some civilians and earn some achievements while you’re on the move. There’s no better feeling first thing on a morning, believe me.

TESLA WARS HD:

We get told not to do it at an early age not to judge a book by its cover, but when it comes to the iOS App Store this statement is still true except it could be modified to “Don’t judge an app by its icon/screenshots”. There are a lot of games that I would have missed out on if I was to simply look at a game’s icon and decide from that if I was going to play it or not. Some icons are downright terrible, they don’t tell you anything about the game you’re potentially about to purchase and could actually turn people off from buying it. Tesla Wars HD is a game that – while it has a pretty decent looking icon – doesn’t really give you much of an idea about what you’re going to be getting yourself into. Even the screenshots that accompany the app aren’t really descriptive; but then again, it’s not really an app that’s easy to describe using simple pictures. That’s what I’m here for.

The basic premise of Tesla Wars HD is that you’re in control of a massive tower that has the ability to shoot bolts of electricity at the oncoming hordes of enemies, at the base of the tower is a wall, which is what you’re supposed to keep the enemies away from. As soon as the little stick figure enemies get the health of your wall down to zero it’s game over. As you can imagine, the main objective of the game is for you to survive as long as you can and to help you do so you’re awarded money at the end of each level, based on how many enemies you killed and how much damage you sustain, that will allow you to heal the wall as well as purchase upgrades to make it a little bit more impervious to attacks.

Playing the game is simple, all you have to do is tap on the enemy that you want to shoot the bolt of electricity at. For the vast majority of the enemies, a single bolt will do the trick but the difficulty lies in just how many enemies there are. It’s easy to become overwhelmed, especially in the later levels, but that’s where the fun lies, trying to destroy the enemies in a particular order (some move faster than others), watching them explode into little mists of blood and saving your precious wall from destructions; it’s all in a day’s work for the Tesla Tower.

If you’ve been on the lookout for a game that you can happily tap away at without putting too much thought into it, then Tesla Wars HD might be the game that you’re looking for. It’s not the best looking game in the world, using simple stick figures for the enemies, but that’s part of the charm of the game; it’s simplistic fun. Almost anyone can play the game too, thanks to the controls simply requiring the player to tap on the screen, so there’s really no barrier to entry for the game either. Pick it up and see what you think. Don’t forget to come back and let us know though.

WORD FUSION:

We all love words games, something that we can quickly sink our teeth into while we’ve got a spare couple of minutes while we’re waiting for the bus or even just waiting for the kettle to boil. There’s plenty of them to hand when it comes to the iOS devices, there literally seems to be a new one every week, but we’re talking about one of them in particular this week in Mobile Monday, a new game from developer AlgoCrunch, Inc called Word Fusion. Can it do enough to creep out from under the shadow of some of the word game behemoths or will it get buried underneath the new slew of games that will inevitably be released in the coming weeks?

There’s only a couple of decent game mechanics that you can get out of a game that consists of a grid with letters on it, and one of the easiest and most enjoyed, is the trusty old word search, which is essentially what Word Fusion is, albeit with a few modifications here and there. The whole point of the game is to find as many words as you can within the time limit, you’re able to swap two tiles with each other and you can do this as many times as you want, but while you’re spending time swapping tiles you’re not earning any points so you’ve got to use this feature a little bit more sparingly than you’d probably like if you want to get big points.

At the bottom of each stage are a selection of test tubes, these are the indicators which tell you how many of each length of word you’re going to need to get in order to be allowed to progress to the next level. If you don’t get enough of a certain length of word then you’re not going to be able to go forward. All of these mechanics mixed together means that you’re going to be balancing a couple of aspects of the game all at once, you’re going to be trying to get as many words as possible, while swapping tiles and being constantly aware that you haven’t found enough five letter words yet. These things playing together help to make Word Fusion a game that not a lot of people are going to be able to put down, it’s certainly a game with that “just one more level” factor built into it.

If you’ve been on the lookout for a new word game to keep you occupied and one that’s got a couple of features built into it that we haven’t really seen in other games of its type, then you should definitely give Word Fusion a go. You never know, you might be pleasantly surprised.