App Review No. 7 Badland

Strong points:
Beautiful graphics
Great soundtrack
Variety of power ups
Dangers are dangerous but still avoidable
Lots of levels- takes a long time to complete
Multiplayer is amazing
Gameplay is great as well
Addictive!
The level editor is great, with in-depth tools and mechanics adding a whole new scope to the game

Weak Points:
No storyline- what the hell is going on?
Some levels are clones of others
Mulitplayer is hard to play on the iPhone or iPod (still possible though)

In-depth Review:

Release Dates:
World Wide: April 4th 2013

Controls:
Touch to go up, release to go down

This is a beautiful well thought out game. But what is often the problem with beautiful games is that the gameplay gets left behind. I am very happy to report though that on this game that is not the case. You are a little bird like robot thing (I think as, like I said before, there is no storyline) who has to travel across the Badlands and make it to the pipes that transfer you to the next area. You go through two days which each have 4 packs of levels in them (dawn, noon, evening and night) which all change the colours of the stages (for instance evening makes it orangey and noon makes it lighter. You following me so far? Probably as that is how deep this games story goes. I suppose that I forgot to mention that graphics and sound generally takes story away as well as gameplay.

The graphics style is black and white silhouettes with a colourful background. This is beautiful and functional as the game can be quite fiddly and you don't want lots of moving shapes and confusing colours to distract you. With this graphics style you can admire the place and still survive.

While travelling across the Badlands you get power ups such as making you bigger, smaller, faster, slower, making you roll or making you jump around the place. One of my favourites is the cloning ability but when they die you will feel a pain akin to watching your Pikmin dying so watch out. There is no tutorial for each power up but in the pause menu there is a short description of them. But they're pretty easy to learn so you probably won't need this.

To add to the length of the game there is also three missions in each stage that can be dying a certain amount of times or saving enough clones. On the main menu you can also see how many clones you have saved in the whole game but you also remember the ones you let go to the saw (in game expression there).

Multiplayer though was a masterstroke. In it you can choose from yet more stages and race to the end of the stage with up to four friends. The only problem is that you only get a small part of the screen to touch (made smaller with the more people who play) this makes it easier to play on an iPad. But don't get me wrong it is absolutely amazing on iPhone and iPod as well.

Conclusion: overall this game is a hidden gem of the App Store and one well worth playing. Go out and get it now and trek across the Badlands.

Rating: 90%

Goodbye for now, Harry

Update: get ready to explore the night... again. That's right badland bird/robot/creature/thing is now traversing the badlands at night for the second day in a row. It sure has taken him/her/it a while, though, but with a load more levels and stuff to try, who cares?

Update: this time it's a wintery multiplayer update (they have seasons in the Badlands? Well, who knew?) and it introduces some new multiplayer levels and a slippery, ice character in certain ones as well.

Update: it's Valentine's Day in the Badlands and our little bird/robot creature is celebrating with a new multiplayer level in which (perish the thought) co-operating is recommended. What has the Badlands come to?

Update: test your skills with the Doomsday level pack. Get three levels for free and then buy the next seven through IAP's. Also, 30 new missions and 4 new achievements have been included in this update (these are free).

Update: it's not all lonely levels and competitive multiplayer in the Badlands as co-op makes an appearance! Join with up to three other friends (or enemies made from a bout of multiplayer) on one device, and brave 40 modified Day 1 levels along with 120 missions and 7 achievements. Also, random levels can now be easily selected in multiplayer mode if you feel that co-op mode is too friendly for the Badlands. Finally, improvements have been made to the Accelerator level and the result screen now shows the level name in the replay. Finally, the Clonetron 'hit nothing' mission now works.

Update: great news for friendly people as 40 new co-op levels have been added to Badland (this time coming from Day II). There are also 120 more missions and 6 new achievements if you prefer them to friends.

Update: boo! Get ready for a spooky update as the Badlands get eerie for Halloween! First of all, Doomsday levels are now available in Cooperative Mode (most likely due to a witch's potion)! Also, 10 new levels, 30 new missions and 4 new achievements (most likely due to a witch's spell)! A Halloween theme, special pumpkin character in multiplayer mode and a Halloween competition have also been added (thanks to witch's ghost)! Finally, both iPhone 6/6 Plus and 5S users can now play with enhanced graphics (due to a... uh... fairy, actually. Just because it's a Halloween update doesn't mean it need to be scary. Unless you're scared of fairies, in which case... boo!)

Update: wake up! You've been daydreaming! You kept mumbling about ten new levels and a new level pack as well as 30 new missions and 5 new achievements. You also kept speaking of a Snorf character, whatever that is... What do you mean it wasn't a dream?

Update: wake up! We've been daydreaming! We were mumbling about 10 new Co-Op Daydream levels for up to four players as well as 30 new missions and 4 new achievements. Oh, and I had a small nightmare about replay recording not working but it appears to be fixed now. Finally, you mentioned something about a bunch of small improvements and bug fixes. Wait, it wasn't a dream?

Update: the biggest update in Badland history brings the tools for you to make your own Badland levels using the very same level editor that the developers use! You can either create your levels from scratch or modify official levels before publishing these and sharing them with other players around the world who can then play and rate these levels! Finally, the developers will choose one level each week to go into the ever-evolving official level pack, Eternal Day.

Update: while you've been spending your time in the level editor for Badland the devs have been spending their time in the update editor. This is what they've come up with: 3D Touch support for the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S plus users among the Badlands which leads to extra precise flying using touch as well as quick actions being added to the home screen icon which, in turn, allows you to quickly continue playing the single player and level editor modes. Furthermore, a new editor tool approaches! The Force Object tool allows you to apply additional forces to any kind of object allowing for new puzzle and gameplay experiences! In addition, the Eternal Day Game Center leaderboards now work properly, labels and fillers can be set to be drawn either on top or behind of everything, non-player clones added to levels can now pick up power ups, iPhone 4 users won't experience anymore crashes in the editor, iPad Mini 4 performance has been improved and lots of feedback based fixes and improvements in the editor!

Update: the devs have been further tinkering in the update editor and have come up with even more new features and improvements! Firstly, introducing a new editor tool: the Linker! The Linker can be used to link any object together with anything, even allowing you to add decorations to the Clony! The Force Object can also be attached to the Clony now! Objects can also be linked to multiplayer checkpoints, allowing for some dynamic design choices! And speaking of dynamic-ness, dynamic values can now be shown in Label objects allowing you to create countdown timers! In addition, you can now load your own levels to Editor through My Levels in Level World, in case you have lost them. Finally, iPad Pro now supports full resolution and the multitouch issue in multiplayer/co-op has been fixed.