Grooh Up

Seen the new category on the iTunes App store, Cuddly Characters. At least that is present on the Australian iTunes store for sure and it features games that have cute characters at least on the icon.

Grooh, is one of the features games under that category. On first sight, the character resembled a khaki Pokémon or more accurately Totoro (as in the anime My Neighbour Totoro). To me when I first saw the screenshots it reminded me of the ZX Spectrum games like Knightlore, Head over Heels that had the isometric look and feel that involved solving certain puzzles moving, jumping. However there is a lot of moving involved, in fact the moves are linked to a rating or Gold, Silver of bronze. The number of moves determine the players ranking for that level.

So, first to answer the question what is Grooh? Grooh is this character that you can move on the screen (Since my second game was isometric, I know how difficult it can get trying to implement an on screen input for isometric movement and how difficult it can get for a player trying to use it) So there were a few starting problems where Grooh would move in the wrong direction or move a bit too much. These issues were resolved after playing a few levels and getting a hand/feel for the way things work. Each level is a locked room, to open the room you need to solve the puzzles and the door unlocks, the puzzles are coloured blocks. You need to get rid of them, only when all the blocks are removed, do the chains on the door disappear and you can go to the next level/room. There are other puzzle games that remove a block when you step on that block, however in Grooh, there are special stones/tiles some make him change colour and be able to destroy the tiles of that colour. AS long as there is an adjacent tile in any of the 4 directions (N, E, W, S) they get removed. so be a bit careful on that. Then there are other tiles that are triggers for explosives, these will explode also removing the other tiles.

Destroy/remove all the tiles, unlock the door and escape. Well that's not all, then there are water tiles, which kind of block your movement, Wood floats on water, crates are made of water, so if you chuck a crate into the water, it will float. creating a stepping stone for Grooh to cross.

The game has a wonderful instruction cum tutorial that takes the player through controlling Grooh and the relevant tiles. The graphics and animations are brilliantly done by Alex. The game has a polished look and feel and has grooh-ling fun.

All in all, the game is one that Grooh's on you as you start playing and complete a level. The puzzles are easy at first for the few tutorial, they almost have training wheels on. The game is interesting and will provide for more than a casual game. The game is already in the charts in various categories, including it being the #1 game in Switzerland, lest I forget to mention that the game developers are based in Switzerland.

Here's a quick video to see Grooh's gameplay http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlZJPMC3NhQ


SUMMARY
Software : Grooh
Version : 1.0
Publisher : digiDingo ag
Website : http://grooh.digidingo.com/
Twitter : @digiDingo
Platform : iOS 4.3 or higher
Price : $1.99

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