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Sometimes it seems like physics puzzlers have taken over the AppStore. Ever since the success of Angry Birds, everyone realized the potential for hooking casual gamers. But FDG, a publication/development company that we here at TAS highly respect, and that has been on a roll lately, releasing quite a few titles over the last couple months, has jumped on the physics puzzler bandwagon, and is taking it in an entirely different direction. With Blosics, Expand It!, Cover Orange, Beyond Ynth and more under their belt, they’re continuously releasing new and unique physics puzzlers on the iOS. 

Their newest release, Car Toons!, is another great example of this. With simple gameplay that can also provide a nice little challenge, it’s another physics puzzler that doesn’t follow in the footsteps of any previous iOS releases. The goal of the game is to get your good cars (ie; cop cars, ambulances, fire trucks, ect) into the parking zones while knocking any bad cars (the black cars) off of the screen. Sounds simple enough, maybe even too simple. But when you take into account the level designs, as well as the hazards and other various puzzle elements, it actually offers up a decent challenge while still remaining casual and simple enough to just jump on into when you’ve got a couple of minutes to spare. 

With 100 levels, and possible 3 star rankings on each stage, with more levels coming soon, there’s quite a bit of content. The 100 levels is split up across 9 different worlds, each with different hazards and objects as well as mechanics to help keep the game fresh. When you start out, you’re only able to touch each good car to make them start, and then touch them again to stop them. Doing this, you’ll need to knock all of the bad cars off of the platforms, and stop the cars in the correct parking spots (each parking spot’s color matches the good cars lights). As you progress through the game, disappearing platforms, the ability to jump, nitro boosters, doors that open when you drive into buttons, exploding barrels and loads more are just some of the things that you’ll end up using in order to complete levels.

The graphics and animations are very well done, with each car having a set of eyes, making the graphics pretty cutesy. But the animations really bring it all together, with wheels turning, smoke flying up from breaks, the expressions of the cars’ eyes, explosions, and more showcasing the polish of the graphics, and making the gameplay fun and entertaining. The music sounds like your typical classic 80’s pop tunes, reminiscent of an underrated nerd winning over a jock jerk in a John Hughes flick. 

Rounding it all out is GameCenter support with a leaderboard for your overall time and 23 great achievements. However, the board for time could use some tweaking, as the longer you play, the further down the board you’ll go. This could be fixed by not submitting a time until the game is completed, or by doing that as well as having leaderboards for each world, but right now, it’s pretty pointless. However, priced at $0.99 for the SD build, and $1.99 for the HD version, it’s a pretty unique casual puzzler, and one that fans of puzzle games should definitely check out. With the support that FDG has given their previous releases, I have complete confidence that the leaderboard issue will be sorted out and know that more levels will definitely be included in the future. Another great release to throw on the list that FDG is quickly building up. 

Out of all the types of games for the iOS, nothing is really pushing the boundaries and expanding like the puzzle genre. And with so many creative indie developers hitting the mobile gaming scene, it’s really no surprise. Gluddle, the fantastic, strangely addictive title from Creative Heroes, is definitely one of those genre expanding titles.

In the game’s description, it’s described as being ‘pinball meets trampoline’ and ‘Peggle meets Angry Birds’. That right there is the best description for the game the developers could have come up with. Your goal is to use bouncy balls to create pathways which you can bounce more balls off of in order to collide them with the game’s ‘bad guys’, surveillance eyes that don’t want you bouncing anywhere. Yeah, it’s a little strange when put into words, but in action, it’s one of the best iOS puzzlers I’ve ever played. There’s only one mode, but with 89 levels, there’s plenty of content, and with the difficulty set just right for an iOS puzzle game, and updates with more levels, it has the potential to stay on your device for quite some time. 

The controls are very easy to get comfortable with. Once you start a level, you’re given a jumping off point. This is where all of your bouncy balls will spawn from. From here, you just need to drag around the screen, and point the ball in the direction you want to fling it, and then tap to let it go. Once it’s in the air, tapping again will freeze it. You’ll need to keep freezing balls until you have built up a path, or have made a sort of Peggle-like jumping board for your balls to bounce off of, trying to get them to come into contact with the surveillance balls. Once you hit a surveillance ball, it’s knocked off it’s axis, and explodes. 

With most of the levels, you’ll need to use the environment to help you reach this objective, with rocks, platforms, gravity holes, teleportation holes and more, which definitely adds more strategy as well as difficulty to the gameplay. 

The graphics, animations, sounds and music are all fantastic, helping to create a world of surveillance and uprising. Though the game isn’t particularly immersive, it’s definitely well-polished, smooth playing, and responsive. Not to mention addictive. Once you start understanding out how bounce the balls off of other balls, and make your way into unlocking the minimum time and gluggle amount medals in each level, the more you’ll constantly be thinking of ways to figure out levels while you’re doing monotonous tasks at work, in the shower or while laying in bed trying to get to sleep. 

Universal and normally priced at $1.99, Gluddle is on sale at the moment for $0.99. For a buck, it’s one of the most interesting puzzle games you’ll be able to pick up, and carry around in your pocket. Unfortunately, the game suffers from the lack of any real replay value, as well as the lack of GameCenter. Leaderboards and achievements would have been a fantastic addition to the game, and it does suffer a bit without GC integration. There is a bit of replay value with the level medals, but as for perfecting each stage, and that drive to do so, it kind of slips under the bar. However, Gluddle is a fantastic, creative game that doesn’t just copy the mechanics of other puzzle titles, it takes them, mashes them together, and pushes them farther than they have been previously, and has had some great support through updates from the developers. For that, it’s definitely worth checking out. 

Puzzle platformers are pretty hit n miss on the iOS. There’s not too many that really nail the platforming gameplay with a good mix of the puzzling mechanics. Beautifun Games SL first AppStore release, Nihilumbra, definitely does a good job of mixing the two, as you guide Born, a strange creature, unfamiliar with the world around him, while he tries to escape The Void. A darkness that is chasing him, as well as sending out weird and complex creatures after him. 

The first thing that really caught my attention with Nihilumbra were the graphics. Surprisingly beautiful, the developers have managed to make the hand-drawn environments fit in with the artificial graphics, while keeping everything incredibly life-like. As you begin your journey, you find out that Nihilumbra isn’t you’re typical puzzle platformer. Not only do the levels run consecutively, but it also focuses on telling a story as well. Actually, a major part of the game is the story telling. Some screens have nothing but a flat path and text instead of platforms and enemies. 

There are two control options, virtual controls with left/right and jump buttons, and tilt controls, which have you flip your device upwards in order to jump, leaving no buttons on the screen. The physics and inertia, like all platformers, are also incredibly important, though with Nihilumbra, the game focuses on using these two mechanics to drive the gameplay. 

As you progress through the game, you’ll come across areas where you’ll unlock new colors, with a total of 5. You’re able to choose these by touching the icon in the top right corner, and then can color the platforms of the environment. Each of these has a different property, for example, blue; Blue is like ice. If you make the ground blue, you’ll go a lot quicker while sliding on it. Green is bouncy, and carries the inertia that you have when you hit it on forward, so if you jump from a high platform onto green ground, you’ll bounce back up to that same height. Brown is sticky, and lets you stick to surfaces. You also have a certain amount of these colors which you are able to use between checkpoints. At every checkpoint, the colors will be returned to your orbs. You can also use the ‘void’ color to erase any colors that you put down. 

However, all of the colors don’t only effect you, they also effect every moving object within the game. The enemies, boxes, projectiles… everything, and Beautifun Games has done an outstanding job creating puzzles centered around enemies, their projectiles, boxes, as well as the environment. 

The game’s description in the AppStore says that it has 10 hours of gameplay. But chances are, you’ll be able to complete the game in about 2-3 hours. Where the real challenge and 10 hours of gameplay comes in is after you complete the game, and unlock Void Mode. Here, you have less amounts of the colors, and the puzzles become incredibly difficult.

Nihilumbra is priced at $2.99, and is Universal. The controls are re-sized on the iPad, so you won’t have to worry about dealing with controls that are out of reach. There is no GameCenter support, but this isn’t really a game that needs it. With the game focused around the story, and just completing the game, there is no score, and no time limit. It would have been nice to see some achievements, but the feeling you get when completing Void Mode is definitely worth more than 50 GC points. Beautifun Games has definitely made their mark on the genre with Nihilumbra. It’s fantastic graphics, and great gameplay make it a puzzler unlike anything else in the AppStore. It may come off a bit preachy at times, but it does an incredible job of creating an immersive gameplay experience, one that all fans of puzzle and platform games should not miss out on.

One of my favorite puzzle platformers available for the iOS is LostWinds. Beautiful graphics, nice controls, fantastic gameplay and an immersive world with great music and effects make it an easy game to love, and I’m incredibly grateful Frontier Developments ported it over to the iDevice from the Wii. It’s also been one of the few games my entire family, wife, 3 kids, nephews, nieces, have all enjoyed playing together. Now that LostWinds 2: Winter of the Melodias has been ported over as well, my whole family has been excited to get into Toku’s world once again. 

LostWinds2, like the first, has you controlling Toku with the help of Enril and the power of wind. This time around, you’re on a mission to rescue your mother, and you’ve got help from quite a few characters, including some that you helped out in the previous title. 

The most notable difference between the two games is the season changing mechanic. Once you reach a certain area in the game where a special bear can be found, you’re able to switch between Winter and Summer by using statues of the bear. This definitely adds to the difficulty of the puzzles, but also adds an entirely new, and unique level to the game. 

Like LostWinds, there are enemies scattered throughout the world which you’ll need to avoid, or get rid of with the power of wind. There’s also various puzzles which will require you to carry objects from one area to another, or figure out how to reach a lever, opening another section. But unlike the original, Winter of the Melodias also has sections where you’ll need to do quests for townsfolk in order to progress through the game, like collecting a certain amount of items, putting out fires, or defeating x number of creatures. 

The puzzles found throughout the game can be kind of challenging, especially once the Winter/Summer mechanics are added, but they never reach a frustrating level, and making your way throughout the game can be considered more of an experience than anything else. 

LostWinds2 has the same control schemes as the original as well; tap+swipe controls, and a d-pad coupled with swipe controls. Personally, I got through the first LostWinds by using the tap and swipe control scheme that was originally the only option. It felt perfect, and even more precise than when playing with the controller on the Wii. After lots of gamers said that it didn’t feel natural, a D-Pad was added for movement, and swipe sensitivity options were added. This did tighten up the swiping and wind mechanics, which was great. LostWinds2 has been released with both of these control options, so players can choose which scheme feels the most comfortable, but both take a little getting use to, especially using the wind swipes to move Toku around. Once you are familiar with the controls, the game plays perfectly, with basically no issues with the controls what-so-ever. 

LostWinds is also graphically amazing, with vibrant environments, loads of detail, and exceptional polish. The animations, music, and effects all aid in creating one of the most immersive gameplay experiences available within the AppStore. There hasn’t been one spot where the camera, animations, or control scheme brought me out of the game, and while playing, it feels like you’re sucked into the world of Toku, going through the adventure right next to him. Priced at $3.99, being Universal and including GameCenter support with 16 achievements, it’s a game that you might not feel driven to replay after you complete it, but is incredibly easy to recommend. The Journal Pages and collectibles do help add to the gameplay, and might even push you towards replaying the game. But at it’s current price point, and with the fabulous gameplay, it’s one adventure game that we’re very lucky to have available to us on the iOS. 

Chillingo is quite possibly one of the most well-known publishers of iOS games, and for a very good reason. They’re constantly releasing high-quality, polished titles. Last week, along with Disco Kitten, they released Eager Beaver, developed by Gamagio, a puzzle title which has you helping a beaver build dams. 

When I first saw the trailer for Eager Beaver, I didn’t think I’d like the game too much, but after completing the first world (10 levels), I was hooked. The goal of each level is to use rocks to build up a barrier which blocks off the water from reaching the right side of the screen. Using fewer blocks results in a higher score. This gets pretty challenging, even towards the beginning of the game, once teeter-totters, mines, the water current, floating wooden barrels, and fish which can knock over your barrier, and disrupt where blocks land are introduced to the gameplay. 

There is no time limit, which is nice, and lets you completely focus on how you want to build up your rock dam. The controls are also simple and easy to use. Each rock is automatically picked up with a crane at the top of the screen, and then you’re able to touch down on the screen, and drag the crane to where you want it, while picking your finger up from the screen releases the rock. Adding to the difficulty, however, as the crane is holding the rock, the rock spins clockwise, so you’ll need to make sure that you let go at just the right time so that you can match rocks together perfectly. 

Each of the 5 different worlds has 10 levels, and each of the levels has an available 3 star ranking. Though to reach worlds, you do not need to complete all of the previous levels, you just need to get a certain amount of stars, which is great for a puzzle game like this, as it’s never fun getting stuck on just one level. To get 3 stars, you’ll need to build the dam with a certain number of rocks, leaving the rest of the rocks un-used. This does add to the challenge, as well as replay value, especially if you’re driven by high-scores or achievements. GameCenter contains a leaderboard for your total score, and 18 hard to snag achievements, giving players plenty to try and complete even after finishing the last level. 

Graphically, Eager Beaver is well done with very nice and vibrant environments, each with their own items, hazards and plenty of variety in the atmospheres. Physics, animations, and inertia are all very well done, and highly polished. Even the movement of the water and the fish’s underwater breathing is animated, and these little touches add a ton to the all around feeling of the game. 

Priced at $0.99, being Universal, and having loads of fantastic gameplay+replay value, it’s definitely a title that stands out within the physics puzzler genre. Seeing more levels, or even another gameplay mode would make it an outstanding title, but as it is now, it’s one of the better puzzler titles I’ve played in a while, and I’d certainly love to see more from Gamagio in the future. 

Myst. For a lot of gamers the name conjures up great memories, fantastic gameplay, and one of the most innovative games of the 90’s. The first time I played Myst was in 1999 during my 3 free periods in High School. It took me about two weeks to complete the game, but it’s stuck with me after all these years. I had heard about a ‘realMyst’ which was done in a type of first-person gameplay incorporating free-roam, but I never got the chance to play it. Now, almost 20 years after it’s original release, realMyst has been ported over to the iOS, and I’ve been extremely excited to dive back into the game after all these years, being able to experience it in a new way.

If you’re new to Myst, it was originally a point and click puzzle adventure title done in a first person view that had you thrown onto an island and left the rest up to you. There was no tutorial, no one telling you where to go or what to do, you had to figure it all out on your own. There were clues left in notes around the island, and little clips found in books and strange machines that guide you along and give you backstory. It took me about 10 tries before I actually got into the game because I never knew what to do, until a friend told me where the first note was, and then I was off, totally immersed in the world, exploring the island through the different ‘ages’ solving puzzles, backtracking, gathering clues, and loving every minute of the gameplay. 

The controls fit perfectly with the touch screen, dragging to look around, tapping and holding to move forward, doing a double tap and hold to sprint, and touching two fingers to the screen to move backwards. Everything within the game can be dragged or tapped to be activated, and like most other point & click games, feels like a perfect fit for the iDevice. 

The graphics in realMyst are fantastic. The atmospheres and environments are beautifully crafted, and full of seemingly esoteric structures that eventually come to life before your eyes. Unfortunately, there are some notes within the game that are pretty blurry, and hard to read. There’s also some very noticeable drops in frame-rate and jitteriness while exploring the world. This does wind up knocking you out of the immersion a bit, but it doesn’t really harm the gameplay. Myst is not an action oriented game, no one is chasing you, and you’re not under a time limit to find clues so you’ll never die because you couldn’t move fast enough or because a couple frames were skipped. But it would be nice if there was a way to optimize the game, even at a drop in frame-rate, so that you’re not constantly reminded that you’re playing a game. But it’s easily one of the most graphically impressive games I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. The music, ambience and sound effects are also just as fantastic as the graphics, and fit in perfectly with the settings, adding immensely to the atmosphere and feeling of the environments throughout the entire game. 

It might take a while to actually get into the game, and figure out what to do in some parts, but the main thing is to keep at it, keep exploring, keep looking at everything, switching levers, touching books, pictures, and knobs, and you’ll slowly progress through one of the most amazing games to date, and find out why some gamers call Myst an experience that borders on being referred to as art more than a game. realMyst is only available for the iPad 2 and 3rd Generation iPad, and priced at $6.99 for launch, with the price set to go up to $9.99 soon. There is no GameCenter integration, which is kind of disappointing, as achievements for Myst would have been a wonderful addition, and would have added to the drive to really explore every little inch and crevice throughout the entire game. 

If you’ve experienced Myst in the past, realMyst’s gameplay and feeling is different enough that it’s worth checking out again. If you’re new to Myst, realMyst is quite possibly the best version you could check out, and even at the regular price of $9.99, is more than worth every single penny you’d spend on it, even with the couple of issues within the game. Being able to have Myst on my iDevice is still pretty surreal, and I’m going to fully enjoy every single minute I spend exploring and solving the puzzles all over again. It’s definitely one game that every person who calls themselves a gamer should experience, and with this iOS port, it’s yet another opportunity to do just that. 

In Micron, you need to place objects around a level, guiding balls to hit buttons, opening doors, to get a ball into the exit. A basic beat will be playing at the beginning of the stage, and every object within the level creates a sound. Bouncing balls off of platforms creates new sounds, which wind up making a full song by the completion of the level. Granted, music doesn’t effect the gameplay, but it’s a very creative use of beats and sounds merged into the gameplay, and it’s clear that a lot of thought, work, and testing has gone in to the placement and possible placements of each and every object. 

The controls in Micron are simple. In the left column, you’re given a certain amount of items which you can use to complete each level. To place them, you just need to tap on the level’s grid where you want to place the object, and then select the object from the column. Each exit has a barrier, which requires 4 balls hitting it in order to open, exposing the exit, which just needs one ball to enter to complete the level. There is no time limit, and each level is shown as complete by having a star next to it on the level selection screen. 

The level select screen is made up like a tree, with branching off stages which unlock when the previous stage is completed. This means that not every stage needs to be completed to get to the last level. As you progress through the game, more objects are thrown into the level designs, like different colored balls which can go through lasers of the same color, but can’t go through lasers of a different color. With the placement of different colored doors and buttons to open those doors around the levels, there’s some very nice level designs, especially later on in the game. 

All of this going on with each object being hit making a different sound is incredibly impressive. Sadly, there’s no real replay value, so after you complete the 51 stages, there’s no drive to keep you coming back. Also taking away from the replay value is the lack of GameCenter or OpenFeint. No achievements and no leaderboards. A game that has this much work and thought put into it suffering from no scoring system, leaderboards and achievements is kind of disappointing. If players were timed, or there was a score based on how quickly you completed the levels, and had that as the leaderboard, it would add quite a bit of replay value. Not to mention achievements. The game just needs something to keep players coming back to it. 

All-n-all, it’s a very impressive first title from Apparition Games. Priced at $0.99, and being Universal, those of you who have been waiting for more music based games to hit the AppStore should definitely pick this one up. The developer has said that he’s planning on adding more levels, more music, and possibly a level generator and way to share community generated content, but only if the game sells well. It’s a long shot, but here’s hoping that more will be added to Micron. There’s tons of potential here, and it would be a shame if Apparition Games didn’t take advantage of it. 

If you’ve been a reader of The App Shack for a while now, you probably already know that we LOVE Ayopa games here. Their nice releases, along with super support from the developers of the games they publish really makes them easy to support. Their most recent publication comes from developer Steven Pastro; an action puzzler, Light Byte. 

Light Byte has 3 different gameplay modes; Endless, Time Attack, and Full Byte. Each mode’s play is basically the same. You’ll need to match two blocks that are the same color, which will make them fall from the slowly descending wall of blocks, giving you access to the blocks behind them. The more blocks of the same color you match, the higher your score will be, and once you take out 8 blocks of the same color, you’ll enter frenzy mode, which turns all of the blocks into stars, and you can just tap away, knocking them all down. 

In Endless Mode, you start off with 3 colors of blocks, yellow, blue and red. As you knock down these blocks, they‘ll fill a level meter as well as color meters at the bottom of the screen. Once the level meter is filled up, you‘ll go up a level, and the speed of the descending blocks will slightly increase. Below the level meter are the color meters. Each meter is added to when you knock down blocks of the meter’s color. Once one of the meters is filled, it shoots stars up to the top of the screen, clearing all of the blocks on screen, and gives you a point bonus. And bonus points are a huge part of Light Byte.

As you knock down blocks, each block that’s the same color as the last is increased 100 points. Once you enter Frenzy Mode, each block knocked down gives you 500 points, and here, you can tap very quickly, and gain quite a few extra points, and if you’re lucky, you can clear the screen of every block, and get a clear bonus. With GameCenter support, and 14 leader boards, high-scores are a huge part of the replay value, and drive to keep playing. There’s also 33 achievements, helping to add to the replay value and challenge. 

Also a part of score chasing, unlocking modes requires you to collect a certain amount of total points. Normal Mode in Time Attack requires you get 5 million points to unlock it, Challenge Mode in Time Attack requires 10 million, and Extreme requires 50 million while Full Byte Mode needs 25 million. 

With the Modes being unlocked by cumulative points, and fairly large amounts, there’s a guarantee that even after playing for hours on end, you’ll still have a pretty big chance of unlocking something new, and having a whole new leader board to compete on. But if you’re impatient, you can unlock all of the modes for $1.99.

As we’ve said quite a few times in the past, Ayopa is one of our favorite publishers. The developers who release their games through them are very supportive, and have worked non-stop to make their games as user friendly as they can, and as entertaining as they can, based on gamer feedback. It’s pretty much a give-in that Light Byte will be the same. As it is now, I haven’t found any issues with the game, but as with almost every other game out there, the chances of someone finding some are fairly high, so it’s always great to have a team of developers+publishers that are devoted to customer satisfaction. Light Byte is $0.99, and Universal. And with the crazy amount of content and replay value, it’s a great game to get if you’re into action puzzlers or games that require quick thinking and reflexes. With Light Byte, you can chalk another one up to Ayopa, it’s definitely a game that’ll end up staying on my iDevice for a long, long time.

FDG Entertainment is responsible for bringing one of my favorite flash games, Clear Vision, to the iOS. Recently, they also brought Tentacle Wars, another popular flash game to the iPad. This week, they’re doing it again. Expand It, the popular flash game featured on Bored.com has hit the iOS world thanks to one of our favorite publishers, FDG. Expand It falls into the physics puzzler genre, but thankfully, it’s not your typical run of the mill physics title. You need to make your expandable blocks reach a certain height by making them bigger as well as using the interesting objects found throughout the stages. 

My first glance at the screen shots, I was kind of disappointed, thinking that it was another one of those ‘take out the blocks so that one block hit’s the platform’ type games. Boy was I WAY wrong. Expand It is an original and very unique type of physics puzzler, something the AppStore needs to see more often. To complete each of the levels, you need to tap on certain shapes that are in the levels to make them grow, and to activate various objects and hazards. Once you have the solution, all you need to do is make sure that one of your blocks winds up above the rainbow line towards the top of the screen for a couple of seconds, and voila, on to the next one.

It may sound surprisingly easy, but once you get past the first couple of levels, finding out the solutions could take multiple tries while finding out what each of the blocks and hazards do, and what actually moves within the levels and what size you need to have each of the shapes reach at what given times. After you think you’ve got a handle on the whole layout of the game, it ramps up the difficulty again, always seeming to add something new and unique as you progress.

Expand It has 4 different environments, each with 15 stages, offering up 60 separate levels to complete. Each of these levels has a 3 star rating, which can be achieved depending on how quickly you complete the levels. This does add a bit of replay value to the game if you’re interested in competing on the Game Center leaderboard, besting your own scores, or completing each of the 19 achievements. The game also has empty worlds showing that more levels are coming in future updates, which is always great to hear, especially when it comes to physics puzzlers. 

As for the graphics, animations, and physics; Expand It has perfected each of these. The graphics are incredibly cute, well still remaining very polished, and the animations for each of the blocks only adds to the great feeling of the game. Each of the moving objects in a level have been done perfectly, making sure that not one of them throws the flow of the game off. The physics are done to perfection as well, as each object has a certain weight to it, and does a very good job projecting that weight through the gameplay, especially on the stages where you need to have blocks be a certain size at certain times in order to complete the stage. 

As with other FDG games, Expand It is very reasonably priced, with both the SD and HD versions costing $0.99. A Universal version would be ideal so that people could compete on the same leaderboard, but with the inclusion of HD Retina graphics, I’m actually wishing more and more games would resort to this method of sales, lowering the price for each version making a $2 game $0.99, but keeping the SD and HD versions separate, as all of that extra space for heightened graphics isn’t’ needed on the small screen devices, and usually winds up being seen as a giant waste of space. If you’re a fan of the physics puzzler genre, and are looking for something new and unique, Expand It is definitely a game to check out. And since it’s released by FDG, you know the production qualities, and updates for the game are going to be top-notch, making it very easy to recommend and support. 

Puzzler games have really been expanding and growing when it comes to new and unique ideas spawned by past games. It’s no secret that Angry Birds (or Boom Blox, depending on how you want to look at it) has, itself, pushed the physics puzzler genre into many different directions, and has had its fair share of clones. But it’s always nice seeing a developer take the flinging mechanic and do something new and interesting with it. Nano Titans, developers of Foodies, an arcade puzzler, has just released their newest title, another arcade puzzler, Webbies. This time around, instead of bouncing your main character around to collect food, you’ll be flinging bundles of food at your characters. 

Seems that a grumpy old retired wizard doesn’t like the little woodland creatures hanging out around the forest all the time, and has come up with a formula that makes his arachnoid  friends webs ultra strong. Because of this, the food that the creatures always munch on is getting stuck in the webs. It’s up to you to fling it into their mouths so that they don’t starve. 

At first, the game seems really easy, and almost boring. But after you get past the intro levels, the game really seems to pick up, and gets some interesting mechanics thrown into the mix. Having more than one critter on the screen will give you different types of food, which are all mixed together in the webs, and you need to get certain types of food into specific animals mouths. This means you need to group the food together, shooting acorns into acorns, moving one piece of food out of the way of another so that you can get it to your critter, or in line with another piece of the same food and then to your critter. This gets ever more difficult as you progress, and moving platforms, sticky grabbers, logs, rotating cannons, moving critters and more all comes into play. 

Now, the scoring mechanics are really what push the game forward, and make it more difficult. Getting three stars in each of the levels will require you to combine the same type of food multiple times, getting a combo bonus score. Matching two pieces of the same type of food will give you 5 extra points, while connecting 4 pieces of the same type of food, without connecting a different type of food while in the process, will give you 25 bonus points. If you have two bunches of food, say one bunch of 2 and one bunch of 3, then the smaller bunch is multiplied by 5, and you’re given that many points, in this case, it would be 10 extra bonus points. Once the platforms come into play, bouncing food of them will also give you bonus points. There’s also bonuses for feeding a critter until it’s full, giving you 30 points, and feeding a critter til it’s full in one shot, which gives you 50 points. All of these different types of scoring bonuses will need to be used in order to get 3 stars in each of the levels throughout the game, and to compete on the GameCenter scoreboard. 

It’s great how a scoring system like this can really change how you play a game. If there were no bonuses for bouncing food off of platforms, bundling them together, or for other actions throughout the game, Webbies would be played very differently, and you have that option if you’re not into high-scores, which also makes this a great game for the younger iOS gamer audience as well. This is always a great thing to hear for those of us with children who are into gaming. 

The graphics, animations, sounds and effects, all come together to create a very polished looking and sounding package. With Webbies being Universal, $0.99, and containing over 100 levels, it’s a great buy, especially if you’re into arcade puzzlers, or games with great scoring mechanics and score chasing. There are no extra IAPs in the game, so it’s a flat out purchase. Nano Titans has already submitted their first update to Apple which adds an undo button. I’m a little worried that this might make the game a bit too easy, but I guess we’ll see when it hit’s the AppStore later on in the week. As it is, right now, Webbies is very easy to recommend to fans of the genre, even if you’ve gotten a little sick of the whole flinging puzzler type of gameplay like I have over the last year or so. Webbies might not bypass all of the typical used mechanics within the genre, but the way it’s presented, along with the scoring system adding to the way you’ll wind up playing the game, it really stands out inside of a genre that’s been flooded with titles over the last couple years.