Last week a pretty cool trailer caught our eye for a game where you sail boats made out of giant bananas, a giant hot dog, a bathtub, and many more silly items. The game was very appropriately titled Silly Sailing (Free), and it’s now available in the App Store ready to fulfill all your silly sailing desires. I downloaded the free game to give it a quick spin and I have to say I’m pretty impressed with just how fun it is. You tap the left or right side of the screen to turn your boat in either direction, and there’s a bar at the bottom of the screen which you’ll drag left or right to close or open your sail. The trick is harnessing the wind properly to propel your boat forward, and there’s handy arrows showing you exactly how the wind is bouncing off of your sail.
It’s surprisingly complex but really satisfying once you get into the groove of steering your boat and using your sail properly. It took a few minutes to get the hang of things, and I’d suggest hopping into the Free Sailing mode for a while until everything clicks. Once you’re comfortable with the mechanics there are 16 different courses to race on, and the game will pit you against 3 other ghost racers, presumably a mixture of actual ghost times recorded from real players and some AI routines, to see who can make it to the finish line first. You’ll earn coins through racing which can go towards buying increasingly silly sailboats.
Silly Sailing is free with (skippable) interstitial video ads, and unfortunately at this time there’s no option to remove them with an IAP. They’re not super intrusive though, and overall I’m having more fun playing the game than I am being annoyed at ads or anything. It’s also one of those games that can be played in both portrait or landscape and will switch on the fly, and there’s even an option for using a radial dial type thing for steering, though I prefer the default left/right controls. Both make this a very one-hand friendly portrait game, though, which is always a bonus with me. Silly Sailing is definitely a more interesting and strategic game that I originally thought it would be, so if it seems like something you’d enjoy then give the free download a try and drop by the forum thread to share your thoughts about it.
