Price: $0.99 Score: 9/10 Category: Games
Tortooga is an iPhone game developed by Think Pinch. Despite it’s goofy name (an intentional misspelling of Tortuga), this title delivers some true fun. In this pirate tale, you have one major goal: rescue a bunch of magical parrots (and collect booty along the way.)
Play revolves around tapping your finger on a grid. There are two grids: a top grid, where items appear, and a lower grid, where you must tap the square that corresponds to the object in the grid above. You want to tap on grid locations where there are parrots, coins, or treasure chests, but avoid other items like cannon.
It’s a surprisingly addictive little game, and forces you to not only have good spatial relations skills, but also fast reflexes. The fast-paced tutorial perfectly preps players to tackle the game, without boring them to tears first.
While I’m pretty sure the title is spelled incorrectly on purpose, the syntax and grammar of some of the game’s dialogue is unintentionally wrong, which can make some parts of the story a bit confusing.
I’m likewise lukewarm about the sound design. It’s pretty ho-hum…but the robotic British voiceover guy that warns you of “golden coins,” shifty coins,” or the need to swipe during the tutorial is weirdly quotable. But if this is a game about pirates and parrots, then why does this guy sound like a robot, and not a more suitable game character?
Despite some minor flaws, Tortooga is a highly addictive game that is sure to make iPhone fans a bit tap-happy. Don’t be surprised if Tortooga becomes the next Angry Birds.
Tortooga is compatible with iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G, iPad (3rd generation), iPad Wi-Fi + 4G, iPad (4th generation), iPad Wi-Fi + Cellular (4th generation), iPad mini and iPad mini Wi-Fi + Cellular. Requires iOS 5.1 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.