iPhone Review: iWater Flow

Publisher: Bulky Pix
Developer: Dancing Dots
Genre: Water simulation
Price: $0.99
Verdict: Nostalgic fun. For about five minutes.
Pros: Impressive fluid dynamics. Easy to pick up and play.
Cons: Low engagement factor. Creepy, disembodied thumbs.

“iWater Flow” wants very much for you to like it. And why not? It’s a highly polished re-creation of the “water jet toys” made popular some 20 to 30 years ago. However, that’s the problem: iWater Flow is mainly an exercise in nostalgia, and likely won’t hold your attention for very long.

The first time you open up iWater Flow, you’re presented with the opportunity to activate OpenFeint — a technology that allows mobile game developers to add status updates, friends lists, and other social features to their games. This particular integration strikes me as a little odd. I mean, who are you bragging to about your score in a water toy game? Not judging; just wondering.

Physical water toys work like this: You press buttons to nudge little floating rings around a little tank of water, trying to complete a particular goal, such as placing rings on posts inside the water tank. In iWater Flow, your goal is to get as many of those little rings on those little posts as possible. You have two water jet buttons at your disposal, and can use gravity to help you by tilting or rotating your iPhone. The rings behave in a realistic manner, reacting appropriately to water flow and phone movement.

iWater Flow offers several tanks to play in. Unfortunately, the only material differences among the tanks are the backgrounds, the number of posts, and the placement of those posts. That said, the game does offer three modes: Classic; Rush; and Time Attack. Classic is the sandbox mode: No goals, no timers, no pressure; it’s just you and the tank. Oh, and the creepy thumbs, which we’ll get to in a moment. Rush mode is a race where you try to nudge all your rings onto posts as fast as possible. Time Attack gives you three minutes to–wait for it!–place as many rings onto posts as possible. Every time you place a ring, it gets recycled, providing you with an eternal wellspring of rings to nudge around.

The backgrounds in iWater Flow are nicely done and fairly interesting. The “water line” reacts to your moving and rotating of the iPhone, which is a very nice touch. However, the elements that you work with–the buttons, the posts, and the rings–are all sadly aliased, so they look really jaggy. In an intense game with a lot of moving parts, that can sometimes be forgiven. But in a low-impact game like this, where you’re literally staring at these slow-moving pieces, it’s very noticeable and distracting. A minor but telling nitpick: the Bulky Pix logo on the initialization screen is pixelated, which is never a good sign…

The background music on the menu screens is catchy but slightly irritating, like a Rihanna song. Curiously, there is no background music during gameplay. Essentially, the only sounds you hear are the sound of the water jets and the movement of the rings in the water. It’s a very silent and strange experience. Oh, did someone say “strange”?

iWater Flow is really concerned that you understand how to press the buttons. I guess, because you don’t actually press the buttons; you slide your thumbs across them. To help get this point across–and, seemingly never let you forget–the game presents a pair of disembodied thumbs sliding across the bottom of the screen, pantomiming what you need to do.

It’s very strange, really creepy, and even though it’s 99% a “con” in my book because it’s a crutch trying to make up for the strange decision to “slide” buttons to press them rather than, you know, press them–there’s a small part of me that finds those creepy thumbs wonderfully engaging.

Unfortunately, the thumbs really are the most engaging aspect of this app.