iPhone App: Rolando

December 27th, 2008

= 5 stars

Rolando is a cute, side-scrolling adventure game where you manage a group of round, roly-poly characters with various abilities through a colorful yet dangerous fantasy world.

The Good

• Amazingly innovative controls, resulting in a truly unique gaming experience only possible on the iPhone. Your creatures are basically rolling circles that you move around the world by tilting the iPhone. To jump, you swipe upwards on the screen. You can select one or more creatures simultaneously through dragging a marquee over several. Many levels require cooperation between units. Lastly, there are a few key objects in the environment (wheels, elevators, doors) that call on you to control via multitouch.
• Very creative level design, steadily increasing in difficulty but with enough variation and new elements that each one feels almost like a new game. I also haven’t gotten stuck on a level and become frustrated. The balance between challenge and entertainment is just about right.
• I really like the flat, cartoony graphics, resembling Locoroco or Katamari. Eventually, the colors become part of the game play as you can directly interact with yellow objects and black ones are to be avoided at all costs.
• There’s some feature called “iSave” that keeps your game progress memorized, even if you exit the game quickly.
• The miscellaneous stuff before a game and between levels is kept to a minimum, making the game quick to get in and out of.

The Bad

• The bar has basically been raised for all iPhone game developers.
• You may play Rolando so much that your fingers wear down to tiny stubs, making it difficult to floss your teeth, resulting in massive tooth decay.

Conclusion

Rolando is a damned excellent iPhone game. It’s better than the similarly priced EA games I’ve ponied up for, and so good that it could be the foundation for a franchise or an entire company. The best part: the developers really “get” the iPhone — its strengths and what it’s capable of — to create a very unique and inventive gaming experience. Definitely check it out — it’s worth the $9 and then some. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to save the royal family.

iPhone App Store Link: