I’ve been playing Tiny Wings a bit during my commutes recently and I have to say, it’s a good start. There are a couple of things that I would change to make it a little bit more interesting or fun or enjoyable.
First Off, What It Is
You’re a tiny bird that sucks at flying. To avoid natural selection, you use your weight to push hard down hills, launching you into the air on the up-slope. Think back to playground swing-sets. You push down to go higher. By pushing down at the right times, you can stack these swings to get more momentum, carrying you higher into the clouds and farther down the row of islands.
You travel as far as you can before nightfall hits.
You can compete for score. Hitting dips perfectly, collecting coins and touching the clouds will get you bonus points — all the while you’re score ticks up like an odometer of all that land you’re crossing. To increase bonuses, improve your nest by completing sets of objectives (which can be anything from touching the clouds twice on a specific island to getting to island #5 with the game upside-down).
It’s fun and it’s cheap. A worthwhile download.
What I’d Change
With all of the fun, I think there are ways to improve it.
Let Me Play My Own Music
When you fire up the game, your iPod music fades out so that you’re stuck listening to in-game music. I’ve tried muting the game audio hoping something would trigger, but no dice. The sound effects are fun, but not enough for me. I’m sure this feature is coming in an update.
Fever Mode Should Let You Outrun Nighttime
If you hit three dips in a row perfectly, you enter into “fever mode.” Your score seems to climb faster in fever mode, and it’s a key component of a lot of the objectives to improve your nest. This continues until you fail to hit a dip perfectly.
But there’s nothing worst than being on a good tear at the end of the game, rocking fever mode for the last twenty seconds of it and the — bloop — nighttime. I would change it so that you can see nighttime is right behind you, but as long as you continue hitting dips perfectly you can keep going.
Game Center Integration
Come on, now.
Historical Records
At the end of each run, Tiny Wings tells you your stats from your adventure: your longest stint in fever mode, the number of times you touched the clouds, etc. It would be great of have your personal bests saved somewhere, with small notifications when you out-do yourself. If these things can also be integrated into Game Center too, even better.
Above the Clouds Animation
Remember that part in the last Matrix where they fly above the clouds, see the sun and it’s absolutely beautiful for them because it’s the first time they’re really seeing it? When you go above the clouds, I wish the game zoomed in and slowed down. Give my bird a look as though he was seeing something incredible. This one is more for me than anything else, just adding some drama.
Progress Display
It would be great to see the three current objectives on the screen while you play and any relevant data to accomplishing those. For example, if you have to be in fever mode for 34 seconds, as soon as I hit fever mode, show me the clock as it ticks. Show me which objectives still may be possible on my current run. Sometimes things are going well until the third island and you hit a rut. You still may want to salvage what you can out of the round.
But Still…
Even with all of the things I would add (some of which I’m sure are coming in later versions), Tiny Wings is fun. Give it a try, I think you’ll like it.
