Mobile Games Roundup
Death! Jubeat! Frogs! Maddening! Spirits!
Ancient Frog
- Android - £1.69
- iPad - £2.99
- iPhone - £2.39 (LE version free)
Tasty snack or slimy little buggers? I suppose that depends how French you are, but when it comes to Ancient Workshop's marvellously moreish sliver of a game, you'll have absolutely no problem stroking frogs' hindquarters in the name of snack-based fun.
The object of this twisted helping of puzzling is to ensure that our green chum can reach his fly-based lunch. Imagine Frogger on ketamine and you're somewhere close.
The solution seems obvious enough to my tired man-brain: crawl gently across that leaf, lash out that long sticky tongue of yours and munch away. But perhaps Froggy McFrog fancies a challenge today: the challenge of reaching his prize by only stepping on the nearby water droplets.
In this amphibian equivalent of avoiding the cracks in the pavement, you have to make sure he takes the smallest number of steps to his tasty snacklet. To do so, you must individually manipulate each limb; detaching and reattaching it to a droplet that's within range. As the game is happy to point out, he's not made of rubber. More's the pity.
Simultaneously brain-frying and fiendishly satisfying, Ancient Frog is another puzzle revelation. And with 100 beautifully presented levels to unpick, it's a keeper.
8/10
Spirits for iPad
- iPad - £2.99
With Sony happy to park the bus on the Lemmings IP for the duration, it's no great surprise to find developers still tinkering around with this enduring gameplay formula.
Spaces Of Play's adorable iPad exclusive flicks a furtive glance at DMA's 1991 classic as it tasks players with ensuring that a set number of hammer-headed spirits are granted safe passage to the 'swirl'.
Negotiating the yawning chasms and deadly spike pits requires you to, for example, grow vines or dig down before adding wind to blow the procession of spirits across to the next area of the level. Sometimes you need to utilise a spirit to block the wind, but once deployed, they can't reach the exit themselves, so careful use of resources becomes essential to meet the strict targets across all 40 absorbing levels.
Broken down into its base mechanics, Spirits probably doesn't sound especially exciting, but in practice, its charming hand-drawn aesthetic and calming pace make it a perfect game to unwind to on a lazy Sunday.
8/10