Game Reviews

Endless Doves

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Endless Doves
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| Endless Doves

There was a time when 8-bit graphics were the smooth runners of the video games industry.

While Madonna's hypnotic hips had defined the previous decade, games like Dragon Quest and Super Mario Bros. were defining an entire gaming generation and destroying sleep cycle patterns the world over.

It's this halcyon era that Endless Doves, Nitrome's successor to 8-bit Doves, evokes.

If you played the Gameboy in the early days you'll be familiar with the style - and while this endless arcade runner is not going to capture the same zealous adoration that those pre-millenial titles enjoyed, it still earns a very enthusiastic back slap and appreciative fist bump.

Endless dreaming

Like the first installment, in Endless Doves you control a dreamer trapped in a four-colour world. You're in the middle of one of those wonderful flying dreams, and you need to swoop through a course peppered with obstacles, collecting doves as you go.

Its a simple premise aided by simple controls. The dreamer auto-accelerates, and you control him with two buttons that rotate him either to the left or the right.

Success requires calculated anticipation, knowing just when to touch the screen and when to let him float forwards unhindered.

It's not about how far you get without dying (and trust me, that's not very far at all) but how many doves you collect before faceplanting into a column of pixels.

It could be very easy to rage quit here, but Nitrome spices things up by turning the doves you collect into in-game currency.

Each feathered friend you gather will flap behind you in a surreal sort of conga line, a visual aid that allows you to keep score as you squeeze through a hair pin bend.

The bird is the word

Even when you die, the birds you collect are banked and allow you to unlock over ten new creatures, including chickens, bats, and pigeons.

It's a feature that dangles like the proverbial carrot, urging you to keep playing even when you've died twenty-six times in a row, your thumbs are seizing up, and the smell of burning from the kitchen suggests you'll be eating buttered charcoal for lunch.

The only downside in the free-to-play version is the ads. The load time between each new run is hampered by a full screen advert that raps its knuckles smartly against your forhead and refuses to go away until you've jabbed the little "X" button at least five times.

Still, if that really bothers you can just fork out £1.49 / $1.99 and support the mobile gaming industry while enjoying a completely ad-free experience. Everybody wins.

Well, except the dreamer. Poor guy probably has a concussion from all the times we made him crash. Our bad.

Endless Doves

Doves may be birds of peace, but expect your quiet to be shattered by shouts of frustration from Endless Doves' addictively difficult gameplay
Score
Alysia Judge
Alysia Judge
After spending months persuading her parents that it's a valuable career path, Alysia is still not bored with writing about games. That's a good thing really, since skills like spaceship navigation and zombie slaying are pretty much non-transferable.