iPhone App of the Week: Kitty Kannon
This article was written by: Jacob Hruska (snakeman555)Well I thought I would take this opportunity to discuss what makes an iPhone app good, and what qualities it must have to qualify for iPhone app of the week. The first thing an app must be is fun. The second thing is the app must have an appeal that lasts at least a week. iPhone apps don’t have to have awesome stories, super graphics, or even long lasting appeal, they just have to be fun. I find that I will get board with an app, but in a month or so I will come back to it and have fun again. So without further ado the iPhone app of the week.
Game: Kitty Kannon
Genre: Casual?
Developer: Stix&Stones
MSRP: $0.99
Rating: 9+
Kitty Kannon is a casual game for the iPhone developed by Stix&Stones. It will run you $0.99 and is rated 9+ for cartoon violence.
Kitty Kannon is a very simple game in which you launch a kitty from a cannon. You use the tilt mechanic to aim the cannon up and down, and you slide you finger across the screen to launch the furry little feline as far as you can. You want the cat to land of bombs, or spring boards to keep it moving forward, and you want to avoid spiky yarn balls, and dogs which slow you cat down. The farthest distance is saved as a goal to beat.
Kitty Kannon is a game that you could play even if you only have 1 spare minute. It is simple, easy to play, and a fun game to show your friends who don’t have iPhones. Oh, and it is really cool to see you little cat impaled on a yarn ball.
Kitty Kannon’s issues arise from it’s simplicity. My major gripe was that there is absolutely no skill involved, at all. Since everything is randomized you just guess, aim, and shoot. This could be solved if you had some slight control of gravity when you cat was flying through the sky. I also would have liked to see a top score board.
Even though Kitty Kannon wasn’t very deep, and didn’t make me feel like I accomplished anything, it was fun. I actually ended up playing it at all sorts of weird times, that I normally wouldn’t have time to play most apps. It is priced at 1 dollar which is a little steep for a game like this, but this is a new developer and I like to support iPhone app developers. He seems to be working hard to improve the game and I think it would be a good investment.
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Cute, yes, but ultimately not even worth $0.99. What tiny bit of control you do have, at the beginning of each “launch”, is far too poorly implemented to give you even a reasonable hope of achieving any sort of consistent improvement. The “speed of flick” routine is, well, entirely ineffective and the elevation of the cannon is so jerky and flaccid (by turns) that you’re really just creating a pseudo-random event. Buy a “Magic 8-ball,” or maybe a pack of gum, rather than this app: you’ll get more fun out of it.
Does anyone know what to do if it thinks you’re in a different town than you are in and whenever you submit a score it puts it in the other towns highscore list?
Good Game but not worth $0.99