Explore And Cultivate An Alien Landscape In Waking Mars
Waking Mars ($4.99) by Tiger Style is an amazingly innovative exploration adventure game from the makers of Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor.
The goal in Waking Mars is to explore the lost caverns beneath Mars and to bring life back to the planet by planting an array of alien seeds. Exploring is done with a single finger - while on the ground, your avatar will walk, and while in the air, he’ll use his jetpack.
There are no levels, but there are different sections of the cave that you will explore. The main goal, when exploring, is to find a way to increase the biomass within the cave. This is done by planting a variety of seeds that grow alien lifeforms.
Some of the lifeforms are benign, and will ignore you, and others will heal you. There are some lifeforms, though, that must be avoided at all costs because they’re eager to stick their little alien talons in you or melt you with acid drops.
Each cave section is blocked off by a barrier that isn’t cleared until you reach a specified biomass, and you will often need to discover the ways that the alien species work in order to get them to grow.
For example, one species will transform into a healing pod with the addition of a water seed, and another species uses seeds to endlessly reproduce. It’s a lot of fun planting alien lifeforms, figuring out how they interact with one another, and learning their diet, habits, and vulnerabilities through research.
There’s a detailed storyline to follow, involving a lost colleague, a forgotten alien species, a destroyed base, a limited amount of oxygen, and a pesky but endearing computer companion that analyzes each species and gives hints.
The graphics are detailed and set a great mood, along with the music. At one point, I emerged from the cavern onto a cliff overlooking the red planet, and I couldn’t help thinking that it was one of the most impressive scenes I’d seen in an iOS game. There’s some serious wow factor in this game.
Leaderboards track your progress (you can increase your score by continually maxing biomass even when pathways have been cleared) and there are a series of achievements to earn, mostly linked to discovering all the details about each alien species. You can even share your research progress with your friends using Twitter.
I fell in love with this game from the beginning, and I don’t doubt that it’s going to be one of the best games of 2012. If you’ve ever dreamed of being an astronaut or exploring the depths of space, Waking Mars is an incredibly immersive aural and visual experience that you won’t want to miss.
