Sway

Posted on March 7th, 2009. Written by Arron.

Critically acclaimed and with fairly high star rating on the App Store, Sway is a quirky little title based entirely on the concept of swaying from side to side.

Sway comes after Illusion Labs’ first (highly successful) skater simulation title Touch Grid [App Store], but is it really worth plunking for? ..

A joint effort between Illusion Labs and Sweedish based ReadyFireAim, Sway brings a new, unique and highly innovative outlook on platformer titles currently available for iPhone and iPod touch.

Game Play
In the game you play as a sort of papier-mâché snake called Lizzy, and as levels progress you will obtain various of her other friends to help you on your mission. Sway is a physics based title played out on various solid platforms suspended in mid air. By swaying from side to side, the aim of the game is to build up enough swinging momentum to collect stars, avoid obstacles and progress to the end of level goal, all the while trying not to fall off.

The amount of stars you manage to collect will obviously impact the score you rack up. Each level you play on Sway, you have the chance to win yourself a Bronze, Silver or Gold medal. Completing levels on Bronze and Sliver was admittedly easy, but Gold was a different story. To get a better feel of Sway’s overall game play, take a look at Illusion Lab’s video demo below:

See it an Action:

Controls
The controls used in Sway do take a bit of getting to grips with, but once you have you’ll be swaying everywhere, effortlessly. In Sway you control your character using the two opposing sides of the iPhone’s touch screen. The left hand side of the screen controls left swaying motion and the actions of your left hand, while the right hand side controls right swaying motion and the actions of your right hand.

“Your character has suction cups on his hands, and you’re in this vertical maze where you sway around the wall and collect objects along the way.”
- Eric Jue (Apple)

The game is played by swaying enough to fling the character to the next point on the platform. You can even swing him in a circle .. although doing that resulted in him flying off the platform at high speed – Oops.

Visuals
If you’ve ever encountered ‘Jungle Climber‘ from the Donkey Kong series you’ll start to get a better overall feel for the type of graphics used in Sway. The game is set out in a Pop Art ~ Comic Strip [Wiki] kind of way, which makes it visually polished from the outset.

I liked the way Pocket Gamer described Sway, as it’s exactly what I think of Sway myself:

“It’s LittleBigPlanet meets Toy Bot Diaries.”

Price
The price of this title lets it down. In my opinion Sway is overpriced. But why? – Simply put. Bang for Buck. Lets face it, although addictive the game is transparent in as far as extendability and replay value. Personally, I think Sway would be better priced at £1.79. It’s popular and well liked enough to sustain it’s sales if it was dropped a little.

Overall
There really is not much else to say about Sway. In my personal opinion, yes, it is slightly overpriced for what you get. It’s visually polished, based on a simple concept of motion, has a thin storyline but boasts an extremely user intuitive control system. Is it Recommended? Definitely.

Current Status: Recommended

Reviewed at: v1.0.0
Reviewed on Firmware: 2.2.1
Download size: 7.3MB
Released on: 23th Feb 2009
Retails for: £2.99 / $4.99

Compatible with: iPod touch Gen 1 & 2 / iPhone Classic / iPhone 3G