Disney is busy proving it knows how to milk a goat dry as it brings the insanely popular Chinese cartoon Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf to our smartphones in a recognisable, if uninspired, rebranding of physics game Where's My Water?
Just to clarify, the whole XYY thing comes from the character's Chinese name, Xi Yang Yang. It's not really important as far as the game goes, but cartoon fans might spend a semi-interesting ten minutes looking up the original animation (and its 800 episodes) online.
It's probably the biggest animated phenomenon you've never heard of.
The water is right where we left it
It's not impossible that Where's My Water? passed you by, so here's a recap to explain both the original game and this rehash.
Pleasant Goat can't get out of the cave because there's a fire in his way. It's your happy task to supply him with the water he needs to douse the conflagration and allow him on his way through the 80-odd levels.
Somewhere on the screen is a reservoir, or a tap, and you’re tasked with excavating the landscape using a carefully placed finger to guide a sufficient volume of water to help free XYY.
Filling up bells along the way adds a bonus to putting out the fire and drops a few coins in the bank - coins that can be used to buy some very basic power-ups or hints, but nothing overly exciting.
Floundering physics
This is a physics game, so often enough it's a case of building momentum behind the liquid that it might find the height to reach a bell, or jump a fire, or avoid a gap in the ground that'll see it spill into oblivion and leave the goat to become a cute little barbeque.
The hydro-powered puzzles seem to have been kept reasonably simple in this iteration of Where's My Water?, presumably for the benefit of younger players who are more likely to follow the show. We liked the original game, though felt that its official sequel was a bit of a damp squib. Where's My Water? Featuring XYY is more akin to the first iteration.
Ultimately, it brings nothing new to the mix other than a change of characters, but that's strictly a superficial modification. And as physics games go, this concept has aged very quickly, and struggled to hold our attention for very long.
It certainly can't be accused of being defective, but its water runs tepid these days.
Where's My Water? Featuring XYY
The kids might pester for anything starring the eponymous goat, but if you already own the original game, resist their nagging. There's nothing new here
Spanner Spencer
Yes. Spanner's his real name, and he's already heard that joke you just thought of. Although Spanner's not very good, he's quite fast, and that seems to be enough to keep him in a regular supply of free games and away from the depressing world of real work.