Game Reviews

AdvenChewers

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iOS
| AdvenChewers
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AdvenChewers
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iOS
| AdvenChewers

As someone who is physically incapable of blowing bubble gum bubbles, AdvenChewers presents a curious thrill.

This tale of a kid who can blow such epic bubbles that they send him skyward is the stuff of fantasy for someone with my condition.

It's like a fat, untalented football fan booting up FIFA to get their little taste of simulated glory.

Blow by blow account

Our plucky young protagonist - our 'advenchewer,' to repeat the awful pun of the title - chances upon a very special piece of chewing gum.

This particularly hubba-hubba Hubba Bubba grants the chewer the power of flight, provided it has sufficiently fine control over its lungs.

That fine control is provided by you, as you feather the screen with taps and brief holds. It's a simple case of press to rise, but if you inflate your bubble too much it will pop, sending your character plummeting to the ground.

That's not to say this unusual confection is your sole means of transport. You also have your trusty pegs, which carry you across the ground and let you hop between platforms with stabs of the screen in typical endless-runner fashion.

Plenty to chew on

Appropriately enough, AdvenChewers is actually a sticky amalgam of several casual treats. It's got the tap-to-jump immediacy of Canabalt as well as the nimble binary flight controls of Whale Trail.

There's even the temporary invincibility of the latter as you periodically climb onto the back of a soaring phoenix.

It's the way that these elements are combined seamlessly across each sprawling level (there's an old school platformer structure here) that lifts this ostensibly run-of-the-mill concoction above the mundane.

Both running and floating mechanics are open to you at any time, with levels stretching to two or three times the height of the screen.

Initially we thought this could lead to us missing one or more of the three birds one must collect to ace each level (and which smartly double as extra lives), but such incidents never seemed to happen.

Suck it and see

The bubble-flight mechanics themselves are well observed, offering a sense of liberation while always reminding you that your means of locomotion is precarious to say the least.

Additionally, there are lots of one-off special use bubbles that can be collected and bought throughout the game. One lets you ride air currents, while another enables you to smash up your robotic foes. Others grant you limited invulnerability, enemy-freezing capabilities, and so on.

We have to say that while these sound like a nice source of variety, in practice they are at best a pleasant diversion and at worst a completely superfluous gimmick. The game's core mechanics and open-level challenges prove more than enough to sustain interest in the game.

AdvenChewers might seem like another anodyne casual platformer to add to the pile, but while it never quite bursts into the stratosphere its expansive properties enable it to float above the App Store riff-raff.

AdvenChewers

AdvenChewers is a surprisingly open and adventurous casual platformer built from otherwise familiar components
Score
Jon Mundy
Jon Mundy
Jon is a consummate expert in adventure, action, and sports games. Which is just as well, as in real life he's timid, lazy, and unfit. It's amazing how these things even themselves out.