'HydroTilt' – Navigate a Water Bead Through 3D Puzzles
posted December 16th, 2008 9:47 PM EST by arn in $2.99, Platform, Puzzle, Reviews, iPhone games, iPod touch games
Publisher-X's newly released HydroTilt [App Store] offers an impressive accelerometer tilt game reminiscent of Marble Madness or a simplified Archer Maclean's Mercury.
The game offers familiar tilt controls to control a bead of water on suspended platforms. The goal of each level is to find the a cold cube (which turns your drop of water into a ball of ice) and roll it to the goal. The game adds a number of additional obstacles, ramps and challenges to make the game far more interesting than your typical tilt-balance game.
Special areas will turn your water into an ice ball or water vapor that can be required to navigate certain portions of the level.
Players will need to use these different forms to solve various puzzles, such as freezing their droplet to roll over a switch in order to trigger a bridge, or use the liquid state to connect electrical wires to activate a freezing machine.
The game includes 25 standard levels and 5 bonus levels. Additional goals of fastest time and collecting crystals (presumably to unlock bonus levels) add significantly to gameplay. Levels seem to quickly ramp up in difficulty to the more intricate designs seen in the embedded video. In later levels, decisions need to be made to trigger switches and convert from one state (gas, solid, liquid) to another to be able to complete the level.
Accelerometer controls seem well tuned from the get-go and not particularly frustrating (well, at least, not any more than any tilt-based game could be).
The game is on sale for its introduction at $2.99 but will go up to $4.99 on January 5th.
For the purposes of filming, I did not even attempt to collect the crystal from the more difficult level, but you can see it on the overview map.
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I can't just let this post go uncommented
So here's at least one:)
Thanks for the video Arn. The gameplay looks ok but sound effects a little dull. Can you play your own music on it?
Looks a lot like Mercury for the PSP.
This game looks pretty good – but I can just imagine myself throwing my phone against the wall in frustration on some of the later levels…
I see there is a timer on the screen, but it's counting up, not down. Do we have unlimited time to finish each level? Does the timer just affect our score then? ie: Faster = better score?
@ Hkiphone
Yes you can play your own music.
@Brett Archibald
Yes, the timer does count up. You have unlimited time to finish every level, but the faster you finish it the better. You can see it as a personal challenge to beat your own times over and over again.
Thanks for the answer Tom – that will go some way to alleviating any frustration, unlike Super Monkey Ball with it's time-limit.
What happened to the $2.99 discount price till the 5th? The developer seems to have backtracked on their original promise. Shame on them.
@Darren
yeah. agreed. I bought the app on my iPod Touch and it said it was $2.99. I then got home and checked my iTunes purchase history, and it said i was charged $4.99 . The price is still listed at $2.99. I sent an email to the Dev and iTunes support. The dev said they didn't know why that was happening, but it was still supposed to be on sale (through Jan. 5).
This app crashes whenever I try to start it (on my 2gen iPod Touch). I have the recommended req's (iTunes v8, iPod software v2.2). Needless to say, I'm a bit steamed. Has anyone else had this problem?
My application crashes whenever I try to use it, too. Since I need my phone, I've removed the game. Too bad, it looked like fun.
Dottie your supposed to restart your phone by holding the power button and circle button for about 15 seconds to restart your phone than it works.