In the spirit of games like Jetpack Joyride and Tiny Wings along comes Flap! – an addictive little game that challenges you to get your little duckling as far as you can so you can save your duck eggs from the evil geese. But beware, when day turns to night, evil comes out and your allies turn to foes.
“Runners” have become a mainstay of the casual gaming marketplace, and for good reason. Whether it be running, flying, racing, or in this case, “flapping”, it’s all too easy to try for that “one more time” in order to better your previous attempt. Each play can be relatively short but it is perfect for mobile gaming and incredibly addictive.
In Flap!, you start off high in your nest but in short order you jump out of it and onto a trampoline. Throughout the world and laid out on the ground are various trampolines that range in size from small to large. Once you hit that first trampoline you are bounced into the air and are given the chance to dive bomb the next trampoline or gently flap to get a little more distance. Dive bombing is done by touching and holding somewhere on the screen and is good for getting some great airtime. Flapping is achieved by swiping the screen while your duckling is in the air but you have to watch your flap meter to see how many times you can do it. The meter can be refilled during the level by picking up various power-ups. There are a good variety of power-ups scattered in the levels and range from a bubble shield that let you hit the ground once and bounces you back up in the air, to magnets that collect coins when you get close to them.
The game also allows you to bounce off friendly flowers; however, you do not seem to bounce as high. As you progress through the levels, day slowly turns to night and those friendly flowers turn into mean, nasty looking plants that end your game right away if you hit one.
Since hitting the ground in the game is an instant game over, aiming for the trampolines is a required skill. In some cases it looked like I missed a trampoline altogether, just to have my little duckling fly back up into the air. In another instance when I thought I had it dead centre, ducky lands face first into the ground. This happened to me on more than one occasion, but fortunately you hit more than you miss. Regardless, this should not have happened and I hope this glitch is fixed with an update down the road.
Despite the title of the game, I found while playing you really don’t have to “flap” much at all. If you just dive and bounce, you can make your way across most, if not all the levels. Out of every 10 bounces, I may have had to flap once maybe twice. This is certainly not a major issue but just one of those minor things I noticed about the game.
The overall look of the game is cute, but nothing special. Your duckling looks like it was designed by the artists of Farmville. Background and level designs are simple and colourful as your duckling flaps and bounces through the levels. In the audio department I imagine you will be turning the music down – or off completely – because I found it rather annoying after ten minutes. One can only take the sound of the same few notes replaying over and over before going mad. The sound effects are the standard ‘boings’ and ‘quacks’ your little duckling makes and are nothing remarkable..
If you are looking for a slight variation in an endless-runner Flap! may be your ticket to a nice little time killer. The game does not do anything ground-breaking, but for the price Flap! Is pretty good bang for the buck and has many of those addictive elements which makes these games successful.
