Quick Look: Did I Download That? Part 2
In the long awaited (by me anyway) second installment of “Did I Download That?” I again take a look at two very different applications. One is currently free while the other is a mere 99 cents. They both just sort of appeared out of thin air, as most games do in the crowded App Store these days, and they were both impulse downloads for me (believe it or not, I don’t download everything just because it’s free). The best part, though, is that they are both pretty fun games.
Harvester
There seems to be a fascination developers have with UFOs and livestock, which is perfectly fine with me as long as it makes for a good game. Now Harvester doesn’t center around livestock, but the cows are one of the more amusing elements of this game. The premise is simply that you control a UFO that circles the playing area, sucking up everything it can in its tractor beam to take back to the mothership. Each item you retrieve lights up a light on your spacecraft, and when all the lights are lit it’s time to offload everything and start over again. You get 99 seconds to collect as much as you can. Items range from cows to barns, and the bigger the item, the longer it takes to pull up. I’m guessing you get more score as well, but nothing really explains that. You tip the device left and right to move your UFO back and forth, and when it’s standing still you tap and hold the screen to activate your tractor beam.
Get The Cows
The graphics are pretty good, and have a nice cartoony look to them. I like how while the foreground contains colorful, nicely detailed elements, the background is basically a bunch of line drawings. The only music is played during the menu, which is a shame because the music is pretty good. What steals the show, however, are the sound effects. Suck up a cow and it moos – makes sense. Suck up a barn, and a chicken clucks. Suck up a particular type of car and the horn plays the same song that blared from the General Lee in the Dukes Of Hazzard TV show. The best, however, is when you suck up an outhouse and the toilet flushes. I guess the aliens have come to take Archie Bunker home!
I hope the developer continues to expand on this game, because there’s a lot of potential here. There are just a few things (like the 99 second limit per game) that make the game not quite as replayable as it could be. You can’t beat the price, however, and there’s something about the flushing toilet in the outhouse that makes me smirk every time.
Final Verdict: Recommended
App Store Link
Napsters
I have to admit that I grabbed this one more for the artwork than the game itself. Those Napsters are so stinkin’ cute. I didn’t even really know what the game was about when I bought it. Turns out it’s actually quite fun. The idea is that you have a grid filled with these critters called napsters. There is a light on the corner of each square of the grid, and when you turn the light on it partially awakens the napster in any square that borders the light. In order to fully awaken a napster, the number of lights border the napster’s square must equal the number of eyes the napster has. If there aren’t enough lights the napster won’t be fully awake and it will be grumpy. If there are too many lights for a napster you’ll give it a headache and it won’t be happy. Napsters with a cap covering their eyes don’t want any light at all. Once every napster has the right amount of light you win that board.
Not Quite Awake Yet
There are three level sets, and you must complete one in order to unlock the next. However, it’s not the end of the road once you’ve played all the level packs. You can actually design your own levels and make them available for users via the internet, which means you can also play any levels that other users have developed. How cool is that?
The graphics in Napsters are really the show stealer. A Napster is basically a pink blob with arms and legs and either 1-4 eyes or a stocking cap. While the critters are sleeping you’ll see them snoring away, and as you turn lights on and off you’ll see their expressions change from groggy to awake and happily animated to grumpy looking when too many lights are on. I would definitely love to see a game that had a full load of artwork from this illustrator. Unfortunately, there are really no sound effects except for turning the lights on and off. I would have figured there would be at least some snoring or something. The music is pretty good, though there appears to only be one track that continually plays.
Napsters is a fun little game that will keep you entertained for quite some time. Even in the easy level set the boards start to get challenging as they get bigger. I look forward to seeing user generated levels down the road as well.
Final Verdict: Recommended
App Store Link
Tags: Eric Pankoke, Harvester, iPhone, Napsters, Quick Look, review, technobrains
