App Review No. 53 Tippy Tap

Strong Points:
Clean graphics
Three different modes
Addictive gameplay
A good time waster

Weak Points:
Scrolling effects aren't brilliant (no longer a problem as of version 3.0)
Pop-up ads
Multiplayer isn't great

In-depth Review:

Release Dates:
World Wide: April 8, 2014

Controls:
Tap the black squares and not the white squares

Tip, tap. Tip, tap. Tip, tap, tip. Tip, tap, tip, tap. Tip, tip, tip, tap. Tippy tap. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tip, damn! I pressed the white square! And I was so close to my high score as well. How long has it been? 12 hours? Hmmm, maybe just one more go. Tip, tap. Tip, tap.

This is Tippy Tap in a nutshell. You play, you die, you start again, you occasionally beat your high score, you die, you start again. Rinse and repeat for hours of addictive fun and hatred. Hooray! There are also three modes which means when you rage quit one mode you can go onto another.

The first mode is Survival and it involves you tapping as many black squares as possible without missing one or tapping a white square. Sound easy? There's a catch. Well actually, two catches. Number one is that there are a lot more white squares than black squares which makes it harder to miss them and the second catch is that as you tap more black squares, the speed of the scrolling increases making the mode more difficult the further you play. There's also a problem with scrolling which I just find annoying. It might be just me but the bottom and top of the screen there appears to be a slight flickering probably due to the white and black squares passing over the static blue background. Again, this might just be me. The only other problem with it is that there are constant pop-up adds when you start up a game or even during it and (besides the fact that I hate pop-up ads as anyone who has read by 4 Pics 1 Word, Icomania or Pic combo reviews will know) this can interrupt your gameplay as well as prevent you from beating your high score. Of course, you can just switch you phone into airplane mode but I think that this is a problem that shouldn't be occurring anyway.

The next mode is Time which has you tapping fifty black squares, without missing one or tapping a white one, as quickly as possible. And that's it, there are no catches for this mode. Just fifty squares worth of pure rage and addiction. Also, due to it not auto scrolling, there are no annoying flickers. The final mode is Distance and is basically the opposite of Time in that rather than having you tap as a set number of fifty squares as quickly as possible; Distance has you tapping as many squares as possible in a set time of thirty seconds. Again, there are no catches to speak of here and no flicker either.

The multiplayer mode is a bit confusing and dull with the online section being more like a glorified leaderboard with players playing indirectly against each other, each person merely trying to get more points than everyone else. There's also a lack of local multiplayer except through Facebook which is a shame as I could see people playing against each other in the same room with it being both a mind game in which the opposing players tried to psych the other out with taunts and jibes. Actually, it's probably best that this isn't around as I don't want to see any Tippy Tap related injuries on the news. The multiplayer isn't only the developers fault though as they are hosting it through Nextpeer rather than making their own multiplayer platform.

Overall, Tippy Tap succeeds in being a great time waster with not really enough in it to be a great game. Still, it's addictive. In fact... Tip, tap. Tip, Tap. Tip, damn!

Rating: 70%

Goodbye for now, Harry 

Update: get your improved graphics here! And, starting from today, it comes with improved gameplay! For a little bit extra, I can also chuck in a new store with two, yes two, powerups (a slow mo and one that lets you touch 5 white tiles) as well as a continue button (for 100 coins)! How do you like the sound of that?

Update: iOS 8 support for iPhone 6 and 6+

Update: supported all iOS versions for iPhone and iPad as well as some bug fixes

Update: supported in iPhone 6 and 6+ for iOS. Updated all SDK's with the latest version