Eye on iOS: Volume 6

MacGuffin’s Curse

An atypical adventure game from indie developer Brawsome, MacGuffin’s Curse is the curious tale of Lucas MacGuffin, a magician who attempts to cover his overdue rent by swiping an enchanted amulet from a museum and ends up a werewolf. With his newfound ability to switch between human and lupine form when standing in pools of moonlight (and only able to perform certain actions in each form), MacGuffin must solve a number of block-pushing puzzles in order to dodge others who are after the amulet and ultimately break the werewolf curse. (See our PC review to learn more.) Released for iOS along with PC and Mac in April, this Universal App currently sells for $4.99 on the App Store.

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Inspired by the early Zelda games, MacGuffin’s Curse employs a top-down view and MacGuffin moves along a grid, making his way around obstacles to find exits. Most puzzles involve coordinating his werewolf and human abilities to move crate-like objects from points A to B. This simple mechanic translates relatively well to iOS, but the touch screen imbues the game with a different sort of challenge than its desktop counterparts. On PC or Mac, MacGuffin’s sprite is easy to navigate with the arrow or WASD keys. In the iOS version, however, you move him by dragging your finger. Because he moves square-by-square along a grid, a simple swipe won’t do; you need to hold down your finger or he’ll only advance by one tile. Because of this, navigation sometimes takes more thought, especially when moving a heavy object which requires a two-finger drag. It’s a more tactile experience but also a less casual one, because figuring out how to move the character becomes part of the puzzle on top of figuring out the room’s logic.

In spite of its simple visual aesthetic, MacGuffin’s Curse has quite a few items to interact with per room, and these have obviously been shrunk down significantly for the small screen. I sometimes had a hard time knowing where to focus and overlooked elements that were much more obvious in the PC version, such as the sparkles associated with caches of gold and access to hidden passages. Certain animations, like the jig MacGuffin dances upon reaching a room’s exit, are harder to appreciate, as are the cutscenes, which are presented in a series of graphic novel-style panels that progress automatically to carry you through the action. On the iPod touch’s small screen, this movement has a claustrophobic feel that makes it difficult to follow the story points being presented. (Luckily, you can re-view these comic panels at your leisure by selecting them from an in-game menu.) I’m sure that playing on a larger iPad would make many of these issues moot, but my own experience on the iPod touch was that many visuals were just a tad too small. Thankfully this complaint does not carry over to the subtitle text, which shows up large and crisp at the bottom of the screen. And that’s important, since this dialogue-heavy game has no voice acting.

With its room-by-room crate puzzles doled out in bite-sized chunks, MacGuffin’s Curse makes good sense to play on a mobile device; on the smallest iOS platforms the game is simply a bit more taxing than the desktop versions. If you’re on the fence about which version to pick, check out the free lite version to give the iOS controls a test drive.

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Adventure Time – Legends of Ooo: Big Hollow Princess

Adventure Time is a Cartoon Network TV show that chronicles the escapades of 14-year-old Finn and his best friend, a talking dog named Jake. The pair’s first iOS outing, Adventure Time – Legends of Ooo: Big Hollow Princess, started out as a free browser-based game playable on the Cartoon Network website, which Adventure Gamers covered last fall in a Following Freeware article. The iOS version is a Universal App that costs $0.99.

It’s entirely possible to enjoy a licensed game even if you’re unfamiliar with the source material (Sam & Max and The Walking Dead are good examples). But to appreciate the story in Legends of Ooo, you’re more or less required to have seen the cartoon. That makes perfect sense for a game embedded on the network’s website, but familiarity with the TV show is less likely for those browsing the App Store for adventure games (especially since the game description doesn’t even mention the tie-in). The basic storyline is easy enough to pick up: Finn and Jake must infiltrate the Ice King’s castle by building a Trojan horse-like princess. Once inside, they learn that some other princesses have been cursed by the king and set out to save them. But the world itself follows its own logic, and the game doesn’t offer much handholding for newbies. Odd characters pop in with no introduction, Jake makes use of shape-shifting abilities there’s no reason to believe a dog would have, and the entire premise (who the Ice King is, Finn and Jake’s relationship to him, why he’s imprisoning princesses, etc.) is never really explained. This makes Legends of Ooo’s story tough to enjoy unless you’re already a fan.

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