The touch screen technology on smart phones have changed the way we use and do stuff on our phones forever — this includes games. With a touch screen smart phone, the kinds of games that is available to you is endless. That’s why so much of the hype in mobile gaming are mostly physics-based games. Games like Angry Birds, Cut The Rope and Where’s My Water are all dependent on a simulated physical world, with or without gravity.
Swing And Collect
Since it’s a very successful genre, I would understand the growing amount of imitations in the Play Store. Flying Bob seems to be among one of them. The game is very similar to Cut the Rope, as the hero is required to collect starts by hanging on a rope, which connects to most objects in the environment — but not all. The physics aspect kicks in when the hero attaches himself to a spinning wheel, or goes down a winding tunnel.
Two Ways To Move
The hero — what appears to be a tiny, robot-like creature — needs to swing from a rope, hoping from one place to another while collecting the required number of stars along the way. There are two ways to do this: Touch or Virtual D-Pad. Touch allows the player to tap on where he wants the rope to attach to, while Virtual D-Pad provides the left side of the screen to aim and the right side of the screen to start “shooting” the rope.
I’m not sure why the latter option is offered, as it’s so much easier to use Touch. I don’t imagine any player who’d want to use two sides of the screen, when they can use just one. If you want to try the Virtual D-Pad for some reason, then a very brief tutorial is available for you to get the idea.
It’s Stars Or Nothing
It’s not entirely clear, but as what I’ve learned from playing the game, there is a required amount of stars you need to collect in each level before you can move on to the next one. Also, there is a 40-second time limit, and if you don’t collect enough stars after the time limit, then all is lost — which is a bit weird. After 40 seconds, the timer on top would turn red and show 00:00, but it will not end the game. You can still keep on playing and can even go on and collect the remaining stars. The weird thing is, nothing happens after that. I found I had to manually just start the game over and try again.
Once in a while, some parts of the game area have balls that pull the hero towards them, others break the rope or prevent the hero from moving forward, but it’s not entirely bad. Sometimes, the “magnetized” balls can even help the hero “float” when there are no valid places to hang on to — which happened to me a lot.
The Verdict
I just find this game too weird and tiresome to figure out. By the seventh level, I was just about ready to put it down. It’s not even that it’s difficult, it’s just the game controls are too simple and, quite frankly, not working as it should be. The combination of this and the time limit makes it more frustrating than stimulating.
Graphics-wise, this game has the same quality as other more popular titles in its category. It even bears close resemblance to Where’s My Water?. This, however, is muddled by the lack of compelling storyline and believable characters. I mean, why is the hero collecting stars? What is he, exactly? Where is this world he is stuck in? What’s in it for me?
If you’re a fan of physics-based games, then there is absolutely nothing wrong if you give this game a try. I must warn you, though, that it may not be what you expect, especially if you’ve played better games like Cut the Rope, Amazing Alex or Where’s My Water? On the other hand, if you don’t download it today, I can assure you you’re not missing anything special.
