Food Run - a level-based platformer from Pixels on Toast

[PixelsOnToast]

Launch trailer:


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Dash, jump, wall slide, stomp and bounce your way through 40 levels of food-based mayhem, defeating Wee'vils, Chompies and more along the way.

Food Run is a one-button level based platformer. The gameplay twist is that as you liberate foods from floating bubbles, they follow behind forming a food chain.



The longer the food chain, the harder it is to keep them safe.



Luckily, any food in the chain can also stomp enemies.



Launch price: $0.69
Platforms: Universal App (requires iOS 4.3)
Screen support: All (including Retina iPad, iPhone and iPhone 5 widescreen)
iCloud Sync: Yes
Game Center: Yes

App Store link:
http://itunes.com/app/foodrun

Website:
http://pixelsontoast.com/#/food-run/


Screenshots:

[Exact-Psience]

I have to admit, the gameplay looks fantastic and the visual style is very sharp, cheery and colorful... But the food characters arent the most desirable set of characters i'd want in a game.

Nonetheless, this is going to be instabought, but im not sure how much time im going to sink into it.

[Exact-Psience]

Oh... it's out, so i bought it. Probably wont be able to play it til later though. Just dont feel like playing as a set of food yet.

[Gabrien]

I picked this up yesterday, and have had a chance to spend a good amount of time with it. It's highly polished, nicely put together, everything works well and looks good. What's missing? Well, a "spark." Something that makes a gaming experience feel a little bit special.

I've played almost to the end of the third world so far, and while it's been mostly enjoyable, it's also felt a bit like going through the motions. You have a dozen or more different fruits you can have as the one you control but they all behave exactly the same so I haven't felt like bothering to switch. You rescue more fruit in a level, but the effect this has on gameplay is extremely minor. I would have thought that having a chain of fruit behind you would act as extra lives, where you would lose a fruit and fail the level only when you lost your last one, but no such luck: one misstep will mean a restart from the beginning regardless of how long your chain is, and this apparent lack of reward for achievement lets the experience down.

Speaking of achievement, there are only two goals in the game: finishing a level, and finishing a level "perfectly." Surely something in between would give the player something of more interest to strive for? There isn't even a score kept. At all. No leaderboards (obviously.) In later levels, once the difficulty ramps up, there is a huge gap between completing a level and gathering all of the pickups within in a single run; giving the player no goals between the two and thereby no sense of progressive rewards quickly leads to frustration and the one question you never want entering the player's mind: why am I playing?

Look, there are two ways to look at iOS games: is the experience you're getting for a mere dollar (there are no IAPs) worthwhile? The answer is yes. Absolutely. Overwhelmingly yes. Is the experience all it could be? No. It's close, but it is lacking something that in the context of "video games," with no outside considerations, is quite essential. (And it has nothing to do with costs, manpower, or production values.)

[PixelsOnToast]

Great feedback as always Gabrien. Will be interested to see how you feel about Chapter 4. I doubt it will massively change your feelings but I've a feeling you'll enjoy them.