MegaNudge Entertainment’s latest foray into iPhone gaming, Snowball Runner, is a good, easy game for the younger set.
Snowball Runner’s premise is simple: You control a snowball that is rolling down a mountainside, and the object is to keep rolling as long as you can – avoiding obstacles that will either knock you down in size or outright end the game and rolling over animals, snowmen, and other items that increase your size or give you points (or both). You move the snowball left or right by tilting the iPhone in the desired direction. If this sounds simple, it is — and the only real problem with this game is that it is really too easy for anyone over, say, age 10. Young kids, however, will love this game since it is fun and very easy to play.
Your snowball will encounter landscape obstacles such as houses, trees, and rocks that, when hit, reduce it’s size — which builds naturally (but slowly) as you roll down the mountainside. If your snowball gets too small and hits an obstacle, it’s game over. Fortunately, it is quite easy to increase the size of your snowball by hitting almost anything else – snowmen, animals, presents – and these are in abundance. Hit a puddle, however, and it’s game over, no matter how big the snowball is.
There are a few special items in the game – ramps make you jump (which makes it possible to hit birds – which count like the other animals), green presents (which make you grow) and yellow presents (which make you impervious to houses, trees, and rocks for a short time – during which you glow, as shown). There is also a Santa Claus that seems to appear pretty rarely, but I was not able to hit one to find out what happens.
SO HOW EASY IS IT?
After a few rounds of playing the game — mostly in the pursuit of both screen shots and learning that puddles bring your run to a screeching halt — I realized that I was already quite bored with it. You can essentially ignore the houses, trees, and rocks since there are so many opportunities to recover from the loss of snow. I found myself essentially just avoiding puddles and making sure that if I got too small that I nailed a few animals. I barely had to move the iPhone much at all. In fact, as a test, I tried playing the game without playing — just leaving the iPhone laying on my desk and seeing how far it would get – and I rarely got a score under 4000 (which is pitiful, admittedly, but considering I wasn’t even trying…) and once got a score of 9000 (and up to level 3).
(“Target rich environment…”)
(Ramps are good – unless you jump over point-giving things instead of obstacles!)
IN SUMMARY
This is a good game for your child under age 10, but adults will get bored quickly and really, really, really never want to hear the theme song that plays endlessly throughout the game ever again. Some may object to the concept of running over animals as a positive and desired action.
Snowball Runner is currently 99 cents and is available in the App Store.
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