Who knew the world could be saved simply by drawing lines? Developers On5, creators of both Charadium [iPhone: $2.99 / Free – iPad: $4.99] and Quizarium [99¢ / Free] comes TipTop: The Last March [$1.99], a Lemmings-like game with a good control method, great art and music, as well as a silly game premise that seems to really enhance the overall experience.
The game begins with you assisting Dr. House Dr. Jose in saving the world from the swine flu epidemic. Much like Lemmings, gameplay consists of you guiding your seemingly mindless squad of Dr. Joses to the end of the level. Instead of using different types of Lemmings, you draw lines for your units to walk over, or run in to and turn the other way. The line drawing control method works quite well, although I did run in to a few situations where I wish I could have drawn more precisely, as currently there is no way to zoom in so you are always limited by how clean of a line you can draw with your finger at the default zoom level.
You are limited by the number of lines you can draw by the amount of ink you have, a resource indicated by a bar on the top of the screen which slowly recharges as the lines you had previously drawn disappear. As you progress through the game, successfully making your way through levels requires very sparing ink usage, as drawing a line too long can result in your team of dudes fall to their death without you having enough ink to be able to stop them.
Depending on how you feel about perfecting games and unlocking achievements, there is a decent amount of replay value in TipTop even though there are only 20 levels included as getting all of your units to the exit of each level is much easier said than done. Thankfully, levels can be completed without escorting your whole team to the end if you don’t care about achievements.
Out of the 20 levels, you’ll visit 5 distinctly different locales with increasing difficulty. (And the later levels do get difficult.) TipTop: The Last March has a fun core gameplay mechanic, and is oozing with style between the excellent art and sound design. If you’ve been looking for a good Lemmings-like game on the iPhone, look no further.
App Store Link: TipTop: The Last March, $1.99 $0.99 – Dropped to $0.99 today.
