Game Reviews

Tiki Towers

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Tiki Towers

It's unlikely GameHouse's Tiki Towers is going to shake its 'World of Goo clone' tag any time soon, but – if you hadn't already noticed – Pocket Gamer is something of a fan.

In its original form at least, this tale of taxiing a peppy pack of monkeys from A to B rightfully earned plaudits on both iPhone and mobile, not only for the ingenious design of some of its stages, but also the sheer character throughout.

Few games have the ability to make you smile even when facing defeat, but the sight of Tiki Towers's band of furry brothers looking glumly on as your hastily erected framework comes crashing down to the ground is worth the pain of throwing a level or two.

High climber

Such jolly jaunts aside, however, ensuring the towers you construct go the distance is your primary concern from beginning to end.

As in previous versions, Tiki Towers's goals are twofold: get your monkeys to the exit on the other side of the map, and try to pick up as many bananas as possible in the process.

You can't control the monkeys directly. Instead, your sole intervention is to provide them with a safe means in which to cross the game's often perilous stages.

In most cases, this means building them a structure that either guides them across a pitfall or two or allows them to scale some serious heights.

Gravity games

The towers that result are essentially constructed out of series of triangles. Every point on the screen you touch close to the existing structure creates a point of reference that the game then fills with bamboo sticks to link it up with the main framework.

This gives each and every tower you build a certain level of flexibility – something that's severely put to the test once the monkeys set out on their merry way.

It's only then that the weaknesses in your design come to light, with your pack of primates swinging their way across the structure with little thought for gravity's desire to bring it down.

However, while it's quite possible that even the simplest looking stages will require two, three, four, or even more runs before you work out what's required, Tiki Towers never feels unfair. Like all good physics puzzlers, rather than leaving you despondent, failure simply encourages further experimentation.

Indeed, knowing you've cracked a stage by going your own way – ignoring some of hints GameHouse has left with the very design of its levels – brings its own unique sense of satisfaction.

Extra Tiki time

Such qualities are hardly unique to this Windows Phone 7 edition, of course.

Perhaps owing to the somewhat cooler reaction accorded the Tiki Towers sequel on iPhone, those behind this new version have remained faithful to the original setup.

That said, two years after its debut, Tiki Towers arguably looks even better on its new home, thanks both to its crisp visuals and to the inclusion of Xbox Live achievements.

This is yet another Windows Phone 7 release that's previously made its name on iPhone, and when the foundations are this strong it's hard to greet its appearance with anything other than a broad smile.

Tiki Towers

Though essentially a rerun of the iPhone classic, Tiki Towers has lost nothing with age, proving to be just as addictive – and amusing – as it ever was
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Keith Andrew
Keith Andrew
With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font. He's also Pocket Gamer's resident football gaming expert and, thanks to his work on PG.biz, monitors the market share of all mobile OSes on a daily basis.