It's not enough nowadays for a game to show promise. It has to follow through, ensnaring players for more than a couple of minutes, if it wants to really climb to the highest heights of the App Store charts.
Unfortunately for
Tin Man Can, after a reasonably impressive opening it never quite manages to pull itself out of the sludge of mediocrity that so many half decent games get stuck in. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's nothing to write home about either.
FloaterThe game casts you as a robot from the future who manages to get sucked into a wormhole. To get home, you need to traverse four different dimensions using your slightly lacklustre hovering engine to fly over gaps and obstacles.
IAPs ExplainedThere are two types of IAP in Tin Man Can, one which gets you Hovatrons, the currency of the game, and one that lets you unlock all the levels.
Hovatrons come in bundles ranging from 4000 for 69p to 50000 for £2.99. They're pretty difficult to come by in the game, but can be spent on modifications and cheats.
The modifications are all cosmetic, while the cheats let you get a boost in the game. Neither are all that necessary, and the game's just as enjoyable without them.
The level unlock costs 69p and gives you access to the first stage of each of the four different worlds. It's a pretty good deal at that too.
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It's a neat enough setup, and the first few levels are intriguing. The controls are stark and simple - you push a finger on the screen to engage your engines, and release it to turn them off. You only have a small amount of fuel, though, so you can't get very far.
Your rockets charge back up again after a second on the ground, or you can grab pink floating orbs in order to give your engines an in-flight boost. But after a while the gameplay starts to stagnate and frustration kicks in.
There's almost no room for experimentation or deviation from the path. You get one shot at getting across a massive gap, and if you're even a few pixels off the correct trajectory you'll miss that fuel boost you needed and end up plummeting to an untimely robotic death.
DimensionlessIt's a shame, because there's a genuinely interesting game here, but it gets lost beneath some poor design choices and repetitive gameplay. Even the boosts and extra vehicles the game adds as it goes along don't detract from the stringent linearity and one-note play.
Tin Man Can is a game destined to be forgotten - another also-ran in a field of other titles that had decent ideas but just couldn't see them through. There's potential here, and clearly talent as well, but the experience is one that you'll be all too happy to see the back of.
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