Game Reviews

Foxtrot!

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| Foxtrot!
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Foxtrot!
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| Foxtrot!

There's a streak of retro charm running through Foxtrot! that does nothing to hide the inherent brutality of the game. At every opportunity it chews you up and spits you out, dumping you back at the start of its single screen levels with nothing more than a flashing sprite to signify your demise.

This is platforming with little fanfare or accoutrements - just a series of ever-sharpening difficulty spikes that require a level of precision and patience to navigate. But slightly dodgy controls mean the game never quite reaches the heights of the best hardcore platformers the App Store has to offer.

Foxed in

The game sees you controlling a dapper fox through a series of tightly paced levels, each of which is only the size of the screen. There are keys to collect, spikes to avoid, and eggs to grab in order to feed your cubs.

You move left by pressing on the left of the screen, and right by pressing on the right. If you want to jump you tap on the opposite side of the screen. Entering doors is also controlled by a double tap system.

There are few games that get touchscreen controls right, and Foxtrot certainly isn't one of them. The combinations of taps and presses feel fiddly and unintuitive to begin with, and you're never quite as precise as you need to be.

It sullies what would otherwise be an engaging, hatefully old-skool experience. The level design is impressive in its simplicity, and learning from your mistakes plays a key part of the bounce-back rhythm of the game.

But when those mistakes stem from a control system that's on the wrong end of the user-friendly scale, the potential for compulsion is converted into frustration.

Outfoxed

When Foxtrot! gets things right, and you've got a handle on the controls, it becomes an eminently playable little game. But then you'll need to shimmy to the end of a ledge or time a jump to perfection, and things start to unravel.

It's certainly not the worst attempt at a platformer on the App Store, but with a better control system it could have been up there with the best.

Foxtrot!

There are some great ideas here, but a cumbersome control scheme keeps Foxtrot! from achieving its potential
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.