Leaf Bound

Pixel Stream’s Leaf Bound ($0.99) has landed in the App Store, which brings its own unique look and feel to the iPhone. The graphics are easy on the eyes, and I thought it was hilarious seeing bowls of noodle, chili peppers and bottles of sriracha sauce. The developers probably had cravings for Phở. I can’t really blame them Phở has single-handedly put Vietnamese cuisine on the culinary map, but this isn’t a review of Phở it’s about Leaf Bound, so let’s get to it.

After playing for a few minutes I noticed my fingers created a nice layer of smudge on my screen, which only became worse over time, is it the game’s fault that I have mutant like powers to sweat 10x more than the average human? No, of course not. But what they could do is add a secondary control option. Such as allowing players to tap and hold on the edges of the screen to move the avatar, as opposed to endless finger sliding.

Deep Problems

There’s a deep problem with how Leaf Bound is designed. Sigh, where do I begin. Ok, first of all I didn’t really feel like I was playing the game, more like going through the motions. As a player I felt my actions didn’t make much of a difference in the outcome of each stage, more luck than anything else, it left me feeling powerless. The gap between the avatar and the top of the screen is so small that it gives you virtually no time to react to incoming enemy attacks.

Games like Leaf Bound are definitely doable on the iPhone, we just need to heed the lessons that classic games have taught us. When I look at platform games I see Super Mario on one end of the spectrum and Sonic the Hedgehog on the other. In Super Mario your avatar can stop moving at any given time so you can survey your next obstacle before deciding on how you’ll over come it, as a result the pacing of the game can be much slower, but also more fun because its you that’s solving the problem, not chance.

On the other hand we have Sonic the Hedgehog which plays a lot like Leaf Bound in the sense that, both are quite fast in terms of movement and there is very little time to react to incoming enemies. So why does Sonic work and not Leaf Bound, in a word, predictability. Since the stages in Sonic play exactly the same each time, with enough practice you could time all your jumps perfectly to pass the level without getting hit once. But due to Leaf Bound‘s randomly generated stages, except for bosses, you could play through the game repeatedly and still never reach perfection.

Not all Gamers are Created Equal

In order for randomly generated stages to work, the game needs to either slow down or create a larger gap between the avatar and the top of the screen. By making these simple changes players are back in the drivers seat and having fun again. Now I do realize not all gamers are created equal, and perhaps Leaf Bound‘s pacing may be just right for you, but in order to cater to the wide range of player skill levels, Leaf Bound should have multiple skill modes, where game speed is increased as you go from easy to hard. By implementing this last change it’ll provide all gamers regardless of skill level a challenging and fun experience.

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