Fibble Review

German developer Crytek are well-known for their action game series Crysis, and have now made their debut on iOS with something rather different, a game called Fibble. This is a cute and colorful physics puzzler, where players must try to get the eponymous alien Fibble through mazes by Flicking him through mazes. This means pulling back from Fibble, charging up his roll, trying to get him into the goal at the end. Along the way, his alien friends come along to help out, like one that can pop him up in the air. The game has both a three-star system, and a series of medal goals that are achievable through specific parameters.

It's something of a departure from Crytek's usual style, but it still boasts detailed graphics, especially in its cutscenes. This is more reaction-based and action-packed than many physics puzzlers, particularly when it comes to using the aliens that players can set at specific points in the level. The thinking comes primarily from the planning – planning where to put the aliens, and what moves should be made to get all three stars, and to get the gold medal. Though, I must say that having two different three-tier reward systems seems like overkill.

The key problem with Fibble is that it seems way too easy to be just slightly off, to just miss that angle by enough to stop rolling, to just mis-time that jump. There's just too many ways to just slightly mess up, and have that entirely mess up the level. It makes the game just too frustrating to play at times, because especially on a smaller screen, there's just too much room to commit errors with. As well, the pricing seems a bit high for the iPad version, considering the game's short length, and it not being a universal app for $4.99. At that price, it really should be playable across devices. The iPod touch version does tend to be a bit crash-prone at times as well.

Fibble can be infuriating to deal with, particularly when things are just slightly awry, but the game still has its fun moments. With some tighter design in future levels, perhaps this would not be an issue, and the game would be a lot more fun.