Review: Reindeer Round-up
Score:
82%
Oh there's nothing like a bit of festive tinsel and trappings to make an application feel just right for this time of year. Some apps go for an extra theme pack, or snow over the title graphics. Or you can go for a game that is all about christmas, which is the approach that Christian West has taken with Reindeer Round-up.
Version Reviewed: 1.0.0.0
Buy Link | Download / Information Link
This multi-level puzzle game sets the mood instantly with its name. That continues with the main menu screen, which goes all-out with Reindeer, christmas puddings, striped candy canes, christmas puddings, and a background track that screams 'running through an American department store to find Santa'. That track keeps playing through the game, so I'm glad it's long enough that it doesn't get too repetitive while playing.
The game itself is a balancing game which asks you to reach a certain height to capture christmas presents hanging in the sky. Strung across the portrait orientated level are lines of fairy lights, and you need to stack the reindeers from the ground upwards to touch these presents to collect them. These act as the 'stars' of the level, so naturally you want to get them quickly. As well as point of pride, it will also unlock the next level.
Reindeers are thankfully restricted to some rather basic shapes, and are mostly rectangular, with the occasional overweight and oval reindeer arriving in the mix just to make things interesting. Keep playing and you'll end up with perfectly circular christmas puddings, and reindeer frozen in blocks of very sloppy ice.
All you need to do is stack everything without letting anything slide off, hit the ground, or be caught by the attacking candy canes at the side of the screen. Don't let the tower fall over either, or it's game over. Thankfully the game remembers your progress and you can jump back to any level so you can try again to beat it, or simply to try to get all the presents or a better score.
Reindeer Round-up isn't the first game of this ilk to be available, it is one of the tried and true game genres, although it's firmly in the b-grade list as it's not as popular as Tetris or Angry Birds style games. But some of the issues with the basic design of this game have been addressed by West.
First of all is giving it a level based approach and not an endurance mode of climbing higher and higher. This allows the game to be very snackable, and with the levels designed to be played in just a few minutes per level. That also means that West can work on interesting starting positions and challenges in terms of placing the Christmas presents to make it tricky to build a structure that reaches them, either through the height or the horizontal displacement that needs to be achieved to reach out far from the centre of gravity.
It also means that each level can have different mechanisms above and beyond the regular stacking metaphor. Some levels you might need to cover up some Christmas tree lights to complete the level (forcing you into a specific pattern, although how you make the pattern is up to you); others might ask you to reach a specific present and not a fixed height; and then the occasional level with boxes of dynamite that asks you to bring the reindeer to the ground through a series of controlled explosions without tipping it off the stack.
By mixing up the 'extra tricks' on each level, while still retaining the core game play, West has managed to navigate the issues with the balancing genre of game, and inject his own (festive rum filled) flavour to proceedings.
This inventiveness is paired up with some fabulous graphics that not only keep everything clear when placing individual reindeer, but also capture the chaos as you start to tower over a level. Shades of colours, solid-looking graphics, and a crisp UI that allows you to drag and drop each reindeer mean that the code helps you play the game, rather than proving a frustrating additional challenge.
Add in some slick animations between levels, sound effects that are sharp and clear, while not disturbing, and you have a winner of a game. Even if it was outside of the festive season, this would be slick and well polished. That West has taken the time to do a Christmas based title, arguably with a lifespan of just four or five weeks, is smart marketing, clever thinking, and deserves to be rewarded.
The game came first, everything else was secondary. But the secondary stuff is all perfect festive fodder, and the game is top-notch. Definitely a game to take under the mistletoe with you.
Reviewed by Ewan Spence at