Two Great Quick-Play Games

Posted on March 20th, 2010. Written by Jane.

In this quick fire round, I’ll take a brief look at two games for iPhone which have caught my attention recently, just for that fact that they can be picked up and played any time, anywhere!

Icy Escort developed by Donut Games is a platform puzzle game set in a gorgeous frosty scene. Mother Penguin needs your help, a huge sandstorm has scattered all her adorable little baby penguins around the icy land and she needs you to direct her to gather them all back together again.

There are 30 levels to work your way through and the controls are fairly simple. Mother penguin moves forward in what ever direction she is facing and she does that automatically. All you have to do is press the screen any where for her to jump. If you want her to do a slightly bigger jump you hold your finger down longer when you press it.

Each level is a frosty looking scene in gorgeous colours. You guide the mother penguin around collecting her little babies as you go. You jump up on the ledge above to get higher and as you go you can collect ice-creams and ice lollies for extra points. There are also little power up buttons that give you faster speed, extra time and some that make you turn round and face the other way. You do all this whilst the clock is ticking, so if you fail to collect all her babies then you will have to keep trying until you complete that level and get them all. It is a one player game and you get star ranked on each level. So if you didn’t do as well the first time round you can try again to get a higher ranking. The levels at times can be quite easy but there are a few mixed in that are quite hard to complete. It gets addictive when you get nearer and nearer to completing that level and I found that after a few attempts I was struggling to put it down.

The user interface is fantastic I loved the colours and cute characters the developers have used. If I’m honest I was browsing the app store and I saw the screen shots of the game and that was what made me decide to purchase it and I’m glad I did. The sound effects are just as enjoyable with added catchy music playing in the background. Its fun for all ages and because of the chance to achieve higher star levels its great for replay value. Altogether it really makes for a great enjoyable game and one that I recommend you try.

Crazy Turkey Blast

Crazy Turkey Blast was coincidentally the recent FREE app of the day .. and so I decided to give it a try. It is a arcade style shooting game where you collect coins for points. Depending on the amount of coins you collect as you go it also unlocks prizes and gifts.

The game is pretty easy to play, on your screen will be turkeys walking and flying back and forth and you have to shoot them. You tilt your phone to aim your target and press your screen any where to fire. The tilting was a bit fiddly at times but you got used to after a while. Each level is timed for 60 seconds and in that time you get coins for each turkey you shoot. Once you have started earning the coins you can then start spending them and this is where the fun comes in. There are 7 prize categories and you can use it to buy different weapons, targets, backgrounds and music or use it to unlock little animation clips. You can even extend the the time length that you play. The prizes basically help you customize the game you play to how you want it, so there is lots of variety. Each time you earn coins they add to the little stash you have already collected ready for you to spend.

Plus+ enabled, you can go head to head with other players via online scores and send them unlocked prizes. If you fancy bragging about your score you can tweet in-game to twitter, although in my opinion I find these little tweets annoying but I know there are many who do like to use this feature. The graphics are lovely and colourful and the sound effects are great!

The game is just one level and you basically replay it each time trying to score as much as you can either trying to beat your high score or just to collect more coins. So with that aspect in mind I imagine some serious gamers would get bored quite easily and not play again but in my opinion its one of those great time waster games that can be picked up and put down again when ever you choose.