The APPera

As simple as this game may be, it’s probably Imangi Studios‘ best game to date! What with a purple hippo jumping through rings of fire? WHY NOT?!

Hippo High Dive ($0.99)

We’ve seen them come out with a handful of word games and even a time management game (Harbor Master), but what can they produce with the words simple and fun in mind? A mindless fun game involving a big fat purple hippo is what!

Presentation

Doodle orgasm begin. The little doodle touches on Harbor Master made my heart melt a little so the thought of those artworks blown into a whole game was music to my ears… and now it’s a reality.

Imangi should be really thankful for their art guy since this is probably the finest doodle art I’ve seen on a game. That and with the combination of some watermark textures and color pencil stencils animation, this is just iPhone design heaven.

Controls

If I’d give you one guess what would it be? Touch! WRONG! The game is fully tilt controlled. Swing the purple hippo left and right until he/she lands on the big water tub.

Gameplay

When I said simple, it almost borders mindless. That’s not a bad thing though as the only real goal is to pass through hoops as perfectly possible. The height increases after every level with ultra increase for perfectly completed levels.

What’s so difficult about this? Glad you asked. If the thought of passing through a number of rings isn’t a challenge in itself, try passing through shrinking rings. That, and not to get singed.

Getting singed doesn’t make you lose one life (you get three lives to begin with), but missing rings completely do. To counter this, little extra lives pick up are scattered throughout levels.

Though getting singed doesn’t affect your life, it does however alter your ranking in one (or more) of Imangi’s customized leaderboards.

Suggestion

I wish there’d be more power pickups and possible a survival mode, but I don’t think that’s what Imangi had in mind… at least not yet. If they however change their minds, both items would be welcome additions.

Conclusion

It’s true that a survival mode can be added and make the game the total Doodle Jump polar opposite but thinking quick and direct to the point playtimes make this developer decision a wise one.

I don’t normally say this but the artwork alone makes you wanna buy the game no? Well I’ll take convincing you a step further by saying the game is totally addicting. It may not have the generic survival mode but jumping through hoops from 1 to infinity is survival in itself!

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