Review: Floe - Can You Help The Little Polar Bear?
by Staff Writer
December 3, 2010
Overview
In the Holiday Spirit it's up to you to help the little polar bear Floe reunite with her mama bear. You help Floe make it through tricky sliding block puzzles to clear path to reunite with mom. You simply tilt your device to shift the pieces around the board to open up a path through the ice flow. The app is universal for all iOS Devices.
Features
There are 64 levels in total with the first 32 the campaign to lead Floe back to mom. Then the next 16 levels are trickier, and the final 16 levels are expert difficulty. You unlock the next level by beating the previous, and you can also start the first tricky level before beating the campaign. Game Center and Crystal are included for online high scores and achievements, and you can earn a star on each level depending on the number of slides used.The Good
The puzzles are nice and engaging which require some thinking, but are still fun. The set up of a campaign to reach mama bear with stops with other Arctic animals along the way will keep you coming back to the game. Making it through all 64 levels will take a long time, and that's just completing the level, not going for stars.
The game has a very cute theme from the adorable highly polished artwork to the catchy, wintery soundtrack. The theme also takes away some of the frustration the puzzles can cause, because you can only get so mad at it. The style also offers a surprise as you would assume they would be puzzles for kids, but it's quite the contrary.
The puzzles offer up a constant moving challenge as the earlier levels have you clear the path, but from level ten and on you need to send Floe into the sliding pieces. You need to move piece by piece, and take a few steps at a time to move through the puzzle rather than clearing it completely and sending Floe across in one move. You also have the ability to freeze a piece in place which is invaluable on most levels as you need to shift certain pieces and not all of them to open gaps.
Floe can be crushed by the sliding pieces so you have to be careful, and you cringe when she's crushed, but it's such a nice celebration when completing a level. There are a few small things that really work well as when Floe is crushed you don't redraft the whole level, but just go back one move. When you're at the main menu you simply swipe in one of the four directions to get access to that section which is so smooth.
The Bad
The puzzles can be quite challenging so despite the cute theme it may be tough for younger ones. Luckily the game has five skip balloons that you can use to get through levels you're stumped on. Just beating a level is challenge enough, but trying to get a star is extremely difficult.
Also you never know what's the slide limit for a star, so you don't have a concrete goal, like six slides for a star. The controls aren't perfect as sometimes you tilt by accident shifting the whole puzzle, and using a slide by tilting your device slightly. There is an undo button so it's not that big of a deal, but is a little frustrating trying to keep the game perfectly level while playing.
