iPhone Appidemic: The Last King of Africa, ep. 1
by at July 30, 2010 7:45 am
Sections: Appidemic, Features, iDevice Apps, iPhone, iPhone/iPod touch/iPad, iPod touch
|
Sign up for the FREE Tell Membership and receive benefits that include the digital edition of Tell Magazine sent straight to your inbox, product giveaways, coupons and much more!
Remember that time you were going to a fictional country in Africa and your plane crashed and you lost your memory and you couldn’t leave and you had to solve a bunch of puzzles and find a bunch of things? That’s because this is an abridged version of the PC game Paradise, which also took on this new name in its Nintendo DS version, so you’ve probably done all of this before. The game has been shortened, altered and customized for the iPhone, but it’s as pretty as ever.
What is it?
The Last King of Africa is a puzzle adventure that centers around Ann Smith, so named because she has amnesia after a plane crash, and those who found her call her by the author’s name of the book she was carrying (note to self, never lose memory in Africa while reading a book by Sparkle Hayter). Ann needs to find her identity and get back to home, and she’s going to need to solve a lot of puzzles in order to do it.
How does it work?
Unlike in its previous iterations, The Last King of Africa for iPhone plays in a static, third-person point-of-view. You don’t get the nodes with 360° movement as with some other iPhone adventure games; rather, each screen indicates where to tap if you want to explore an item or move to another location. Some usable items have that sparkly effect to call your attention to them, while others (such as the green gems you can find) require you to find and tap them on your own. It’s a simple but interesting movement/inventory system that I actually quite liked on the tiny iPhone screen.
Along the way, there are numerous puzzles of differing styles to solve. This, of course, is the main appeal of the game; you play these for the mental challenge. Unfortunately, the puzzles in The Last King of Africa aren’t terribly inventive, nor are they all that tough to figure out.
All of this is tied together by a somewhat choppy story, which research tells me is because the iPhone version is abridged (I’ve never played the previous iterations). I found this odd; considering it’s only the first episode, there’s certainly time to tell the full tale. Perhaps the developers wanted to move the first episode along quickly in order to hook gamers for episode 2?
Is it contagious?
Well, if you’d have this before, you’re likely immune to it now. The Last King of Africa is certainly very pretty to look at, and there was never a point in my play-through when I found myself getting bored. However, this first episode is somewhat short, and it’s made shorter by the fact that it’s fairly easy. This is good if you play these games for the adventure and story, as you’ll never lose interest due to puzzle frustration. But it’s bad if you’re looking for a good puzzle-solving challenge. If you have a DS or PC nearby, you may want to look into buying those versions instead.
Category: Adventure/puzzle games
Developer: Bulkypix
Cost: $2.99
Download: The Last King of Africa
Related Posts