Swirl is a 3D arcade style racing game that brings Sonic the Hedgehog like gameplay to the iPhone. Swirl will have you doing 360s with your phone as you fall down different tunnels collecting stars and power-ups while avoiding obstacles.
Swirl reminded me of playing Sonic the Hedgehog, lightning fast speeds racing down a track collecting rings and other goodies. But the Epicore team has mixed things up by using the accelerometer to guide your descent down the 5 worlds in Swirl.
Game play is straightforward, you’re falling down a tunnel and you twist your iPhone around to collect stars and avoid the obstacles hurtling toward you. You twist the phone round and round to spin around the tunnel and tilt it forward or backward to speed up or slow down. Throughout the level there are several obstacles you need to avoid, such as blocks or concrete walls. Naturally there are several power-ups to aid you in your descent, but beware of the infected mushroom and paint buckets disguised as power-ups.
This trailer video gives a great overview of how the game is to be played, including how much you actually rotate the phone while playing.
Epicore also integrated the Feint community engine for in-game chat and leaderboards. You can login with your Twitter or Facebook credentials and then chat with other users of Swirl and see how you stack up against other players on the leaderboard. Integrating Feint was a great move by the team to help other users connect and add a competitive element (who doesn’t like moving up the leaderboard?).
The team did a good job of designing and laying out the different worlds and using the accelerometer to control the gameplay. The combination of obstacles and power-ups is just right to make each level a playable challenge.
I was little disappointed to see that it lagged a little several times in the middle of a level and the controls felt a little sluggish. This is the first release, so I would imagine some of these issues will be resolved in the first update. I think the Epicore team is on to something fun, just needs a little bit of perfecting.
$2.99 feels a little steep for the current state of the app, but if you like racing games like Sonic the Hedgehog you may really enjoy it. You can get Swirl 3D from the App Store here.
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TAGS: iphone apps
