iPhone Review: Aqua Globs

Publisher/Developer: Qwiboo
Genre: Path Management
Price: $1.99 (updated review below)
Verdict: While there are better path management games out there, the small twist employed here may make this one worth looking at.
Pros: Clean graphics and sound with an easy to use interface, easy to learn and play and ultimately fun.
Cons: Game lacks variety and has very simple, if non-existent, animation.

This game will teach you all about race relations between amoeba where apartheid has found it’s way into the microbe-verse.  Even though they probably bleed the same blood and look identical (one seems to have a better dental plan) they must not touch or drink from the same fountain.

How to keep your bloodline pure.

Aqua Globs is yet another entry in the now extremely popular “path-management” genre.  However, there is a slight spin here as developer Qwiboo has added a “match and eliminate” angle to this tried and true premise.  The game is played exclusively in the landscape orientation.

The game allows you to play on mute, use the supplied music and sound fx, or to listen to your music and their sound fx.  This is a common setup for iPhone games now and should be standard operating procedure for games that don’t use custom sound tracks as part of the actual game play.  If you choose, Aqua Globs will run you through a tutorial that breaks down the basic mechanics of the game as such: there are blue globs and orange globs and they should not touch for if these two races should meet you lose a life.  The social political experiment doesn’t stop there, we also have a green Glob that doesn’t care who he eats, he takes all comers.  The trick here is to draw a path between the baby blue Globs and baby orange Globs (who alert you off screen where they are coming from next) so they will join and become a larger adult master race Glob.  The goal is to create path between two adult Globs that will meet and ultimately disappear, clearing the board for more hi-jinx.  The baby Glob and the grown-up Glob will not join the same color supremacist rally, showing us that you are not born with hate in your heart, it is learned.  The green Glob acts as a wild card, allowing you eliminate any Glob of any size and color.  These simple game mechanics make up the entire game.  The fun, especially on higher speeds, is in trying to manage all the separate Globs of different colors and sizes.  The game can become frenzied and this is where it’s enjoyment lies.

You are scored for how well you can segregate.

The sound effects are workmanlike, but sufficient.  Game play is implemented rather well, as you are able to redraw paths and create path stubs or loops to occupy the Glob while you wait for the other Globs to traverse the directions you have set.  The graphics are very basic, but stylish in a clean vector art type way.  There is very little animation to speak of, for instance: the collision of two race-warring Globs is little more that a red ring leading to a loss of life indicator. The game sports 3 speeds which is really what will differentiate your challenge and enjoyment level.  Also included is a trophy type system to reward you for accomplishments earned during game play and for the social butterfly gamer in you, you can email your scores directly from the game.

This is a non-integrated fountain you are floating in.

Ultimately, Qwiboo has done a somewhat basic job of delivering a slightly modified path management game that could have used more variety, animation, and depth.  Regardless of its blandness, the game is fun and worth a try if you haven’t already had your fill of these games… or you can let your inner Nelson Mandela out and boycott it.

11/30/09 UPDATE:

It seems that there is a new trend emerging on the App Store in which an incomplete or proof of concept piece of software is released for .99 cents as a way to fund the completion of said game.  As an example, Aqua Globs 2.0 has been released and goes a long way to actually finishing the software into a more complete experience (also, Backbreaker 1.1 was released today, and again attempts to add depth to what is basically a tech demo).  The upside is that if you already took part in the beta test for .99 cents, you get the full version for free.  People who waited for the real game to come out have to pony up the full dollar ninety-nine.  This Darwinian ’survival-of- the-purchased’ approach to development is not necessarily a bad thing: early adopters get to shape what is (hopefully) a decent premise or foundation and the late comers pay a reasonable price for a finished (and theoretically better) product that is ‘mob-developed’.   It will take some time to see if this practice is amenable to the marketplace and I can sense a backlash when and if the updated games come out with a new app-ID requiring an all-new purchase.

"Great games are never finished, only abandoned." - Shigeru Miyamoto* (* not really)

With version 2.0, developer Qwiboo has taken what I originally called “bland” and spruced it up (compare the screenshot above to the ones from the original review) significantly. How? I’ll let the developer tell you: “First thing you will notice is that we redesigned the graphics completely and made it to fit better the aqua theme of the game. The game now has 4 levels, each of them with different special glob and twist, like moving icebergs, underwater caves, corals etc. You can see description of each level in the game before the level starts. We also added much more achievements and leaderboards for the players to compete in. These are also connected to Open Feint 2.2 so players can see global rankings and collect OF points as well. The game engine was optimized as well. The globs connecting is so much easier now and the game runs smooth even on the 1st generation devices.“  I can vouch for all of this, the 2.o version feels like a complete and polished release.  While it is still a PM (path management) game, it is definitely a contender now for the younger crowd’s PM dollar.

Coming soon in version 2.1: Pirates! (I can't wait for the Zombies in version 4.0)

And to further illustrate my point, the dev has given us a sneak peek at version 2.1, which “…brings 2 more levels into the game! Again, with brand new twist not seen in the previous levels. The new levels have other objects like coins and gifts floating on the screen and players need to collect them to get extra points. I attached one picture from the pirate level coming in 2.1.” The circle of development continues as version 2.0 buyers have something to look forward to and comment on that may facilitate a version 3.0 someday as long as people keep voting with their App Store dollars. For all you Adam Smith fans out there (or anti-capitalists), here is further proof that a free market can work and devs do listen to constructive criticism.