Coming out of their word games shell, Imangi studios show promise as they release their first full featured game complete with animation and 3D graphics.

Little Red Sled ($1.99)

The game is a 3D racing game complete with goals, gifts, ramps, tricks, and of course, big scary bunnies. The gameplay is very simple, but match with it’s outstanding (that’s you Natalia!) soundtrack, Little Red Sled provides an ambient and serene sound that grabs you by the neck and makes you keep playing.

Sled Riding

The gameplay involves controlling a cute kid on his/her red sled (by accelerometer) guiding the kid through pine trees and bunnies and collecting gifts or performing tricks along the way. You can either play as Max or Maya.

The game starts off easy with about less than 5 gifts to collect. The goal was to familiarize the user with the game environment, and we think Imangi delivers. The game doesn’t need complex tutorials but Imangi Studios were smart enough to tone down the beginning levels and adjust difficulty from there.

On later levels, you’ll find yourself needing to perform tricks (by shaking the iPhone) to complete the level:

Graphics and Sound

The 3D graphics although not as sharp looking as other games is very respectable and commendable. We love how everything screams joy. From the fluffy clouds, to snow covered pine trees to the cute little sled, the game manages to be very enjoyable.

Half of the game’s enjoyability is due to Natalia Luckyanov, the lady behind the cheerful soundtrack. Check out one of the in game soundtracks as Natalia plays it live:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIMnJrToekA[/youtube]

Suggestions

We extremely like the game and how it’s focused on one theme. This is also a tremendous first game effort coming from a word game background.The only thing we can really complain about is the loading screen:

It can use a little bit of animation and repositioning of the “Tap anywhere to begin text”. It’s kind of hard to notice when the game finishes loading. Maybe a load bar, or a bigger dead center text should fix this. Make that 2 complains, the font face for the buttons (back, start etc) are a little too fancy where it becomes a little distracting:

Well as you can see, these are some itsy bitsy complains and are not game shattering defects. We love Little Red Sled and we definitely think you should get it as you’d love it too!