Posted by Ryan Johnson on 08 12, 2010

Yogo The Turtle

Categories: Games, | 0 comments | |

In the peaceful turtle town of Mongundo Village life was good. The land was beautiful, it’s turtle residents where happy, and the most important thing on everyone’s mind was who will win the annual spinner jumping contest. Yogo The Turtle, the villages top dog in this contest, had one it four years in row prior to dominating the competition yet again. While gathering in front of the sacred rock for the awards ceremony, aliens unexpectedly flew down from the sky and took away the villages sacred rock. The sacred rock is what brought all the beauty, peace, and harmony to the land. It made the spinners spin, which turned a stark desert into the plentiful and vast green landscape that it is today. Now, with the future of the village in jeopardy, Yogo The Turtle must set out to reclaim the sacred rock from the aliens.

Created by DigiTalented LLC, Yogo The Turtle is an engaging adventure that requires players to master simultaneous use of the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad accelerometer against a ticking clock and a variety of time shrinking obstacles. Yogo can leap high into the air with the swipe of a finger, and can move from side-to-side both on the ground and in the air with a tilt of your device. Yogo leaps and bounds his way up levels bouncing from spinner to spinner, avoiding time subtracting bugs and insects, and collecting points building and time replenishing fruits.

To complete levels you’ve must advance Yogo from the bottom to the top of each level by hitching rides on the colorful yet tricky spinners. Yogo sticks to spinners like glue, and the longer he stands on them the faster they spin. Arrows appear while riding on spinners, helping to guide you to the next closest one. Round and round he goes until you swipe you finger and leap. While in the air you must tilt your device to direct Yogo toward spinners, fruits, vines, and mystery boxes filled with goodies, and away from time zapping bugs and insects.

Levels must be completed in the time allotted, which at first doesn’t seem too bad, but as you advance and the levels get harder, games can seemingly end in the blink of an eye. Why’s this? Well, if Yogo falls and hits the ground you lose valuable time. Depending on how far you fall you can lose as much as 20 seconds! In addition, when Yogo makes contacts with bugs you lose valuable time as well. In some cases you’ll find yourself hitting the same bugs over and over because they’re either strategically located nearby a spinner, or are flying around and hit you as your leaping from spinner to spinner. You can earn back lost time by collecting fruit, so it’s a good idea to grab as much as you can whenever possible. You’ll definitely need it more and more as you progress in the game.

To add to the challenge Yogo The Turtle migrates through the air with a lot of momentum. You can guide him by tilting your device, but you need to do so with some foresight. Because Yogo leaps while spinning rapidly, he’s often flung away from your intended target. Such momentum can’t be reversed instantly so you’ve got to begin tilting your device in the direction you want to go immediately after you leap. To land on targets with precision you need to get good at predicting how much tilt is required and how long you need to keep the device tilted. It’s not rocket science, but it definitely makes the game more engaging and challenging, which I like a lot.

Overall Yogo The Turtle reminds me a bit of teenage mutant ninja turtles, has a bit of a drawn out story at the beginning (you’ll see what I’m talking about), but really is a fun and well put together game. The graphics, sounds, levels, and game-play are really nicely executed. I found the game engaging and hard to put down. I think most will roll through the first 3-4 levels with ease, but before you know it will be working really hard to beat the clock and minimize mistakes. Yogo The Turtle is a great game for all ages of players; both kids and adults. Definitely don’t hesitate snatching this bad boy up!

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