Pollywog is a physics racing game that comes in a highly polished package. You guide the rather cute “Pauly the Purple Pollywog” through obstacle courses made up of lily pads, bamboo, lotus flowers and rocks. While speeding down these courses you have to make sure not to hit any of the obstacles, because if you do they’ll slow you down dramatically. Getting through each course is usually a challenge, but within the given time limit it’s even harder. The par time for each level usually allows for you to hit one or two objects, but any more and you’ll fail the course.

Of course being a physics racing game, all the obstacles you hit are moved by your impact. This means if you hit a lily pad, it can sometimes ruin the whole of the course for you because it can move other obstacles. There is a simple way to get out of this though, if you tap the screen it sends out a ripple out at the front of your character which moves any obstacles out of the way. Rocks, on the other hand, are unaffected by any movement and are therefore a larger hazard. The screen is constantly moving forward at a steady speed and if you get left behind and fall below the screen, you also fail the level.

As you swim through each course you have four aims: to complete it as fast as possible, to collect all the yum yums, to dodge all the obstacles and to be as skillful as possible. The yum yums you collect are set out around the course and typically guide you through it. The yum yums give you a slight speed boost as you eat them, but if you want a true kick-start you’ll have to pick up the pink power up. There are two other power ups in the game: the purple one (which briefly stops time) and the mushroom (which slows down time to get through some tricky gaps).

For each level you are rewarded with four awards (which correspond to the previously mentioned aims). You can get bronze, silver, gold or perfect for each one and collecting a certain amount of golds and perfects unlock new levels in the game. Currently there are 19 levels in the game, split into four tiers. The difficulty curve is done perfectly and the timings for each level are never impossible to complete, and are rarely easy. The 19 levels took us a good couple of hours to complete and it’ll certainly take a couple more to get perfect awards on all.

Much like Chaotic Box’s first game, Pinch 'n Pop, Pollywog’s presentation is fantastic. The animations are extremely well done and the upbeat fanfare music is some really addictive audio. The menus are also wonderful with each option seemingly floating on the peaceful water. Adding to this oddly zen-like nature are the obstacles used in the game such as lotus flowers and lily pads. The ripples in the water that your character creates also add to the game’s slick presentation.

We definitely recommend picking up this second offering from Chaotic Box. It’s a speedy racing game that is genuinely suited to the iPhone with smooth tilt controls and tremendous graphics. It’ll test both your mind and your reflexes, and will always leaving you wanting more.

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More by this developer

Pinch 'n Pop, C

Review by Ben Briggs, February 21, 2009

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