Who among you hasn’t at one point played Flight Control – be it on your iPhone, iPad, or Nintendo DS? Very few I’d reckon. We just got back from speaking with the Australian creators of Flight Control, Firemint and, after asking them how they’re attempting to make lightning strike twice, they handed us an iPad, giving us a practical demonstration, via their new upcoming game Agent Squeek.
Having a quick gander at the game’s logo – and name, being honest – I feared the worst, before having said fears dispelled by what is an initially accessible, yet ultimately in-depth effort that works brilliant with the touch interface.
Flight Control’s core mechanic worked by maintaining the simple pressure of juggling multiple flight paths simultaneously. Agent Squeek gives you just one path to manipulate – that of a mouse in a perennial search for cheese.
If you’ve ever played Zelda on the Nintendo DS you’ll have a rough idea of how the core mechanics of this game work – you guide a mouse, ‘Agent Squeek’, through a series of increasingly angular mazes, collecting cheese and dragging to your mouse hole. It works in a very similar manner as the evade sections in Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks.
A quick demo video, shown after our hands on, revealed that Firemint is stretching this core mechanic to insane levels, with ponderous boss battles, increasingly elaborate level design and a succinct level of polish. What initially seems like a simple, disposable iPhone game, eventually unfolds into a title with the potential to ensnare even the most cynical core gamer.
Agent Squeek may just end up being the next iPhone game mercilessly draining your poor, buggered battery on the train when it’s released this year.
Leave a Reply