The APPera

Ever wanted to juggle little furballs on your iPhone? No? Me neither. Once you start playing Uggles though, you’ll wonder why you never wanted to.

Uggles ($0.99)

Uggles is the perfect example of a casual game for the iPhone. All you have to do is keep the uggles from hitting ground which sounds super easy, well it’s not. It begins boringly slow then amps up to fever pitch relatively quickly until you’re swinging your iPhone back and forth vigorously. Difficulty in such simple gameplay only goes so far, and Uggles separates itself with charm packed into every detail.

Presentation

Uggles is a color bonanza. The visuals are pretty basic, but it’s colorful and cute that fit perfectly with the game. Every uggle is a different color with a lot of detail put into each one. There are 4 backgrounds as of the 1.4 update with a forest, beach, groovy, and nebula background that are constant. The nebula and groovy have what looks like a Mac OS X Leopard dock. The Uggles them self are animated a little as they’re flying through the air rotating around, and blinking.

Visuals are nice, but the sounds are pretty much nonexistent. There is no background music, although you can play you ipod. The only sound effects are a drum tap as the uggles bounce, and beep as you move the big red uggle.

Each Uggle has a name, and a little bio, like Smuggles the pirate who looks just like Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow.

Control

Tilt or Tap. These are your two options to control the big red uggle’s hands to keep juggling the uggles. You tilt the iphone left and right to move the hands to keep the uggles bouncing. With tap there is a left and a right arrow on the bottom you tap to move the hands.

The tap controls are much easier because they move in only the 3 possible positions, while tilt scrolls the entire way. When I tilted I was just off the middle section, and I missed an uggle. Tilt makes it more challenging, and makes it feel more like you’re juggling.

Gameplay

The best part of Uggles is the super easy pick up and play game play. It fits the game model where you have to move left and right to keep something in the air for as long as you can.

Uggles uses one big red uggle with hands to keep bouncing the smaller furball type uggles. The small uggles bounce back and forth between your hands, and pick up the pace with each bounce. As soon as you miss one the game ends, simple yet pleasantly addictive.

There are 3 positions on each side of the big red uggle defined by the proximity to it: close, middle, or far away. The hands are like one piece so when you move far to the right, you’re close on the left side. The small uggles only land in one of the 3 positions, on each side. You score points by each time an uggle bounces off your hands so with more uggles the faster your score adds up.

There are three modes of play, easy with 1 uggle, medium with two uggles, and hard with 3 uggles. You choose which uggles to play with so you can play with blue, yellow, and green, or tiki, pirate, and green, or even all three greens, it’s up to you.

There are only local high scores, but two sets of scores: one for touch, and one for tilt.

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Uggles also has unlockable content to add more reason to play. You can unlock new uggles to play with by scoring the required amount. As of the 1.4 update there are 4 unlockable uggles. Smuggles the pirate required a 75 point score.

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Suggestions

Uggles is good as is for a casual pick up and play game, but it can be the go to one by adding a few things.

• A Pause button in touch mode. Even though the games are quick, I would still like a pause button so you don’t feel like you can’t be interrupted. There’s a pause on tilt mode though.
• Make some background music, and more varied sound effects like different giggles and noises for the varying uggles. Like some pirate sayings, tiki beats, and some noises like chuzzle make.
• I would love to see online high scores just to see how well other people do on this game. Also maybe levels, or at least a changing background every 25 points so you feel like you’re getting somewhere.
• CHANGE THE RIDICULOUS ICON PLEASE. WHAT’S THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THAT HUGE BLACK SPACE? WHY IS THE UGGLE SQUISHED TO THE LOWER RIGHT?

I think the best addition, though, would be an Uggle customizer, like an uggle avatar that you can use in gameplay. Keep the updates coming: adding new backgrounds, and more unlockable uggles.

Conclusion

Uggles is a perfect pick up and play game for any spare moments in your day. It’s fun, and quick so you can play quite a few games in a short amount of time. It’s easy to pick up the basics, but gets quite difficult as you progress, and even tougher to reach the higher unlockable uggles. The unlockable uggles give you something to shoot for, but there are only 4 as of the 1.4 update.

Uggles can be improved with a few updates, and become the go to game when you’re waiting in line, or walking between classes or around work. There’s not a lot of depth, but it excels at the simple juggling uggles mechanic, with the intricate details setting it apart from the rest.

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