Back in mid-March, Big Pixel Studios released their colorful physics puzzlers Land-a Panda [99¢/Lite] and Land-a Panda HD [$1.99/Lite] into the App Store. In it, you shot a rotund panda named Yang Guang from cannon to cannon across cleverly designed levels in an effort to unite him with his mega babe girlfriend Tian Tian. It features 80 levels, each with 3 coins to try and collect in each, as well as Game Center achievements and leaderboards for every world. In essence, Land-a Panda is like an entire puzzle game built around the barrel shooting sequences from the Donkey Kong Country series, and it’s just as fun as that description sounds, as we found out in our review.
As we mentioned in that review, there was clearly hints that additional worlds containing new levels would be added in the game, and Big Pixel has just released the first update for Land-a Panda that does just that. This new fifth world is called Panda Island and contains 20 brand new levels to play. These levels feature some new obstacles to deal with as well as new types of cannons to use and enemies to avoid.
Another new feature is an optional action button in the bottom middle of the screen that you can use to activate cannons and other mechanisms in the game. By default, you tap directly on these objects to activate them, but some gamers in our forums and elsewhere felt that this forced you to frequently block too much of the screen. The new action button alleviates this issue, though I have become so used to the normal controls that I still find them superior, but it’s nice that the option is there.
Game Center also gets a new leaderboard for Panda Island as well as a few new achievements. Also, the main menu screen now dynamically changes based on the time of day, which is really just a minor cosmetic addition but is the kind of detail that I love nonetheless. If you’ve already been enjoying Land-a Panda and have worked your way through the initial offering of levels, then snag this new update for 20 new challenges to conquer. If you haven’t yet been bitten by the Land-a Panda bug, definitely give the free lite version a try.
