iPhone RTS Slug Wars slithering onto the App Store soon

Slugs are disgusting creatures, and most people would sooner walk a thousand fudge-eating dogs down a heavily policed Oxford Street without poop bags than touch one.

The iPhone is all about testing boundaries, though, and Republic of Fun is probing the boundary of the human gag reflex with Slug Wars, a real-time strategy game about slugs and snails.

It's quite a simple affair. There are three modes: Campaign, Skirmish, and Slug-it-Out (one-device multiplayer), and the object in each is to get a certain number of slugs from one side of the screen to the other by pulverising slugs coming the other way.

Starting (slightly oddly, it has to be said) on the right and working your way left down three lanes in the single-player modes, you need to choose what kind of slug you want to deploy from a list that grows as you make progress in the campaign, starting with basic slugs and snails and expanding to include fast-moving units, salt-toting Kamikaze units, brine-drinking nuke slugs, and more. Each unit costs money, and you earn this by eating flowers.

Republic of Fun is submitting the game to the App Store soon, but we've had a go on a preview build and it's looking solid. The closest reference point is probably the recent Trenches, though the movement in this is confined to three lanes and the action is all visible on a single screen. This streamlines the experience somewhat.

The visuals are simple but characterful and the controls are unfussy.

Look out for a full review some time in the next few weeks. In the meantime, here's some character art we got sent.