Melon Truck Review

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Melon Truck Review

at 6:05 AM

Melon Truck Review

By Sinan Kubba on August 16th, 2011
Our Rating:

:: TRUCKIN' ALONG
iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad

Melon Truck isn’t the most ambitious, but it does a serviceable job as a fun and simple physics-based puzzle game.

Developer: Batuhan Akalin
Price: $0.99
Version: 2.0
App Reviewed on: iPhone 4

Graphics / Sound Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
User Interface Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 1.75 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 2.56 out of 5 stars

We’ve been saying for ages that it’s about time someone made a game in which a truck launched melons into giant floating baskets, and finally Batuhan Akalin has answered our calls with his one-man creation, Melon Truck.

The idea is to aim the truck’s launcher by rotating it until it’s in the desired angle and then wait until the pin on the power slider is at the desired level to press fire and watch that melon fly. If that melon lands in a basket then the points denoted are awarded, unless it’s a smarmy negative style-cramper of a basket in which case they’re taken away. Use the five available melons to score the required amount of points to progress to the next level, then rinse and repeat. As they have been known to say, it’s that simple.

That simplistic design makes it an easy enough game to while the minutes to, even if success often feels like it’s more to do with luck then judgement as the levels become more complicated and feel more like Pachinko than, say, Angry Birds. Sadly it’s over all too quickly, and the second world, a clone of the first world but with baskets that move up and down, feels like a false addition of more content. It’s just a bit too fleeting for me, and in the short time it is around it’s not very ambitious.

Even if Batuhan’s debut iOS game isn’t the most ambitious, it does a serviceable job as a fun, simple, and for the most part challenging physics-based puzzle game. And he’s introduced me to the idea of a melon truck, and that in and of itself is invaluable.