Mobile Games Roundup
Glowfish! Moki! Detective! Siege! Minesweeper!
Glowfish
- iPad (version reviewed): £1.99. 60 per cent off for a limited time.
- iPhone: £0.69.
- Also available on PC.
In the end of year shake-down, no-one will remember Glowfish and his noble quest to rescue Coralline from the clutches of evil Dr. Urchin. (Yes, it is now possible to be an underwater super-villain with a doctorate).
His inevitable future obscurity gives me a pre-emptive pang of regret, because of all the dozens of completely forgettable gaming characters that swirl around the gloopy cesspool of mobile games, Glowfish deserves a kinder fate.
It's not his fault that he looks like a mouthless puppy with engorged nipples for fins. He does his best. And, frankly, his best is pretty bloody good. You swirl him around the inky depths on a permanent rescue mission, scooping up stray companions, and running rings around surly sentries that, once tamed, join your merry throng.
And once there are enough of you congaing around the ocean blue, you'll be deemed worthy enough to explore deeper recesses to repeat the feat. But for the first eight or so of its 50 sizeable levels, a challenge feels like a distant prospect. With time and persistence, though, a darker, uglier set of levels open up and start making life difficult for you.
Beyond that, Glowfish's unnerving mazes offer the unexpected menace befitting of a desperate rescue mission against an unfeeling urchin. I wouldn't let the doctor get away with it, if I were you.
7/10
Touch Detective
- iPhone: Ch1-Ch2 pt 1 - Free. All chapters £5.99, or individual chapters at £2.49 each.
If you're more familiar with cult Japanese video games better than you are with your own family, the chances are that you'll already be fully acquainted with BeeWorks' 2006 DS adventure.
If that's the case, well done you/shame on you. You'll also know how cruel it was that it was routinely overlooked at the time, despite charming the hind quarters off of any one exposed to its point and click goodness.
With maximum improbability the game focuses on the trials and tribulations of a young girl detective called Murphy, with her sidekick, Funghi. With various mysterious cases to solve, you find yourself engaging in the usual bantering with absolute weirdos, while exploring locations, combining objects and solving puzzles in the way that only adventure games allow you to.
In gameplay terms it's a well-worn path, but you're not in it for innovation, you're here for the quirky dialogue, the surreal scenarios and the alluring art style.
And just in case that doesn't draw you into downloading it, they're giving away the first one and a half chapters for nothing. An hour in, and you might well agree that Touch Detective deserves to rub shoulders with Phoenix Wright.
7/10