iPhone games: Tiny Wings knocks down Angry Birds

Get Ahead reader Mohit Sureka reviews Tiny Wings, a game on iPhone that has in recent weeks dislodged Angry Birds from the top pedestal, in response to our invite (below).

Mohit has done his bachelors in Information Technology and Masters in Business Administration from S P Jain Institute of Management & Research and runs his own company Spiel Studios.

I had first introduced and predicted this game in my previous article, Top 10 games to look forward to in 2011, and not surprisingly, it has already knocked off Angry Birds from the number one position on the App store.

In almost all stores worldwide, it is currently topping the charts in top paid apps category and has also got featured by Apple.

My prediction of it being the first hit title of 2011 is coming true.

The gameplay is quite simple; not much of physics, but still very addictive. It is the graphics and excellent fps [frames per second], which keeps the game going.

The whole experience is extremely smooth without any lag or glitch. FYI, not many games can achieve this kind of fps constantly throughout the game.

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One cool thing I like about the game is the use of procedural generated graphics, due to which every time you play, the background and theme looks different. This way you never get bored seeing the same thing over and over again, and rather look forward to see some new dynamically generated colors every time you start the game.

Overall, the art style of the whole game, combined with the music and sound effects keep you engrossed.

Mind you, the game is nowhere in the league of Angry Birds, but for strange reasons you tend to keep playing it.

The gameplay is extremely repetitive, but the objectives keep changing and in route you discover new terrains, called islands.

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The gameplay is quite ordinary where you just touch the screen in the correct orchestrated approach and make your birdie fly through the islands and collect coins.

The goal is to make the birdie ride through the mountains by touching it on the way down, and releasing it on the way up in order to gain flight.

Every gameplay session is timed and is graphically very well depicted in terms of daylight. The game starts by waking up the birdie from its nest and making her fly till night dawns.

As you play, you can feel the background transiting from morning to night in a very natural and colorful way.

When you are playing for the first time, it can become a little frustrating to get the timing of the touch right, but once you get a hang of it, you tend to enjoy it and becomes difficult to leave your phone down.

Also, currently it does not have any integration with Game Center or any social networking site, which should be achieved in the next version update.

All said and done, it still does not have the wings to match the popularity of Angry Birds or even come close to the other all time hits of iPhone. But it has yet set the cash registers ringing for Andreas Illeger, the developer.

It is not an easy task to stand out among the 300,000 odd apps, and an astronomical achievement of deposing Angry Birds from the number 1 position!

My Verdict: The developer may have got lucky with it's first title, but it will be interesting to see for how long it can sustain the No. 1 position. New regular updates will be critical to maintain the curiosity and keep the players engaged in the game.