Free Fallers
In the new game Free Fallers, construction crews are moving in to build stuff and in the process are mowing down the happy homes of the pandas. These witty pandas aren’t about to just sit around and take it so they concoct a crazy plan to drop from the sky and crush the construction crews into submission. To aid their mission they summon the help of their fellow animal buddies and begin to wage all out war on the home wreckers.
Created by ChilliJuice, Free Fallers is a cute game with a new cuddly twist to path-drawing strategy games. It offers 8 challenging levels and increasing points and rewards the more vehicles you crush. The game-play feels very natureal as it leverages both touch and swipe techniques well. To crush vehicles you must properly time and guide free-falling pandas, tigers, and elephants on top of them. As you play animals drop randomly from the sky in increasing numbers as construction vehicles travel across the screen from both sides. Animals fall quickly, and you don’t want them to collide with one another or miss their intended targets because it’ll end your game instantly. This may not sound very tricky, but I can assure you that it is. Free Fallers is no cake walk.
Free falling animals drop at a rapid rate, but can be slowed down with a single touch. When you tap an animal it deploys their parachute, buying you time to strategize as to which vehicle you’d like them to squash. Once parachutes are deployed you can move animals laterally with the swipe of your finger. Once you’ve gotten an animal positioned where you want them you use your finger to drag a line down toward your intended target. A feint trail of animal prints is left in the sky showing you your line of attack. Successful strikes leave visible damage on the target.
The overall game-play in Free Fallers is definitely both fun and challenging. Admittedly for me it took a bit of getting used to. Mainly because the cuddly demeaner of the game somewhat downplays the skill required to play it. When you’ve got multiple animals in flight navigating to different regions on the screen, new animals swiftly flying into the picture, and multiple construction vehicles to target, it’s very easy to lose track of at least one thing, which in many cases is just enough to end your game.
Free Fallers is good game for both children and adults. I’d say it’s probably best for kids ages 10 and up. The cuddly and fun nature of the game will without a doubt be a draw for even younger challengers, but personally I feel like the game is likely too challenging for them, thus may lose it’s appeal rather quickly. For adults, I wouldn’t let the child focused theme sway you from trying it. As I said, this game is pretty hard. It’ll give anyone of any age a run for their money. The graphics are pretty good, the game play is decent, and it provides more than enough challenge to be worth the $0.99 price point.
Pros:
- Challenging, fast-paced, and fun
- Decent graphics and sounds
- Cute characters and fun theme
- Good for both children (ages 10 and up) and adults
Cons:
- A little on the difficult side for younger children
- Graphics, menus, and sounds could be better
Version Reviewed: 1.1.1
Requirements: iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad; iPhone OS 3.0 or later
Posted by Ryan Johnson
on Aug 9, 2010
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9 Responses to “Free Fallers”
Hi Ryan,
Great review! This is a good find, thank you! I just got the game and I see what you mean about being deceptively difficult! I'm way older than 10 so this will definitely keep me entertained for some time yet!
I just tried playing with my earphones and the sound is actually really good! There's a lot of bass so it will sound a bit tinny if you use the ipod speakers. They've got a mix of bass guitar and cartoon slapstick effects so quite an interesting and comical mix that I think is brilliant!
Now to unlock that lush beach background!
Really positive reviews, so why only give it a 3?! I rated it as 5/5 on iTunes
I also don't understand why graphics are in pros and cons… Makes no sense? The backgrounds are wonderful and the cuteness of the characters really comes through despite only being 10 pixels wide.
Kids under 10 yrs shouldn't be playing computer games anyway so no problems for me haha! It certainly does get challenging very quickly which is perfect for me as I only tend to play games when I'm waiting in a queue.
Overall, gr8 game!
It’s a great game for sure. I gave it a 3/5 mainly because I felt like (aside from the game-play) things such as the graphics, effects, menus and sounds (for example their could be more variety), could be improved upon, in comparison to other 5/5 rated games. It’s very close to a 4/5 though. 100% worth $0.99, and definitely worth picking up if you’re into line drawing strategy games.
After sleeping on it I think a 4/5 is probably a more accurate rating
Hi Ryan,
On behalf of ChilliJuice, creators of Free Fallers, first off, thank you for your detailed review. You certainly picked up on the nuances, and we are delighted that you found the gameplay fun and challenging! The feedback is very welcome and much appreciated, and – this is the first time we are announcing it, btw – we are working on a _super_ 1.2 update for the game.
. More on that later. Very excited about it actually – and your feedback was helpful. Of course, all those who purchase the game will get the upgrade when its available, automatically. And this would be a major opportunity for your readers given that our current promo week pricing of $0.99 ends this weekend… Looking forward to sharing more on this forum and hearing from you and your readers! Keep Free Falling!
Kapil Madan
Co-founder, ChilliJuice
oooo "_super_"…. I like the sound of that! Can't wait!
Sweet gameplay vid!
Pleased to announce that Version 1.2 is here! Its a massive update with an all new Compete mode and cool special effects. Please check it out and let us know how you feel.
Cheers and keep gaming!
Kapil
just tried it…..it was very impressive.special mention about the sound and the animated characters(esp the panda) which i thought were really cute…the game-play is uncomplicated and user friendly and thus is a big relief…also the text that appears during the game is quite a morale booster considering that it gets quite challenging after the first few levels…the varying speeds of the 3 animals during the higher levels make it more fun….so all in all an enjoyable game worth your time and money…giving it a 5/5