Game Reviews

Splash !!!

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| Splash !!!
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Splash !!!
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| Splash !!!

Conservationists have long asked the question: what can we do to help the pandas? I'd like to flip that around for a second and ask: what can pandas do to help themselves?

Not all pandas content themselves with sitting there idly munching on bamboo, you know. One industrious panda (let's call him Pops) that I know of has set up his own soft drinks company.

Now we have the agile panda of Splash, who has mastered water physics in the name of our entertainment. Good show.

Life on a bubble

Perched atop his particularly viscous bubble in a surprisingly dainty fashion, your panda rolls around each single-screen level in a hunt for two rubber ducks. The primary means of locomotion is rolling by tilting your iPhone, but's it's not the most interesting way to get around.

You can store water in your bubble and then push it out to propel yourself through the air. The bubble can only hold a finite amount of the wet stuff, and filling up will increase its size, making it harder to fit through gaps and avoid pins.

This sets up a number of nicely diverting puzzle challenges, as you bid to pick up the ducks and deposit them into the rubber paddling pool as quickly as possible.

Not panda-ing to its audience

While engaging and thoroughly charming to look at, Splash is a little too fiddly to be mentioned in the same breath as something like Cut the Rope, which it evidently aspires to be.

Not only do you have to deal with the tilt-to-roll system, but you have to take into account a directional drag-and-release system for the water propulsion. You also have to tap to halt this flow on numerous occasions, as well as double-tapping the bubble (twice) to drop the ducks when in position.

While this makes for a pretty involving and unique experience, it can feel a little like patting your head while rubbing your belly at times. There's a real learning curve here, which might not appeal to a casual audience drawn in by the cute graphics.

On the up

Still, for those looking for something a little different in their casual puzzling, Splash certainly delivers. Credit is also due for the final world, which freshens things up further by removing gravity from the equation.

Overall, Splash is a little too fiddly and the concept is too unfocused to propel it among the greats of the genre, but it floats elegantly just below the top layer.

Splash !!!

Splash is a novel take on the casual physics-puzzler muddied slightly by fiddly controls
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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.