Most times in life, the tortoise will outrun the hare, and that’s how it should be. But, when it comes to the iPad game Tilt HD: Flip’s Adventure in 1.5 Dimensions, the hare outraced the tortoise to market. After an extended development period without a formal launch for the iPhone, XEOPlay’s Tilt HD was quickly developed and launched alongside the iPad in April. However, an iPhone version of this reflex-driven puzzle game backed by a very strong environmentalist message remains in development.
Nicole Lazzaro, the President of XEOPlay, gave me a tour of Tilt HD and its background. Tilt HD offers a world of 12 lushly hand-drawn screens with five puzzles per screen, for a grand tally of 60 puzzles. The mechanics are elegant and simple in design, requiring a player move the amphibious character, Flip, around the four basic up-down-right-left compass points on a playfield. Consume the natural elements, like leaves, water drops and seeds for a point called a “TiltPoint,” but if you’re so unlucky as to catch some of the same items polluted with a green toxic cloud around them, it’ll cost a point. The more TiltPoints a player gets, the closer they are to reaching their objective of filling their point meter. The goal drops are individual items that, when added up, contribute to filling their respective meters and meeting the game’s objective.
Making the magic happen is accomplished by rotating the field physically with the iPad, or if that requires too much heavy-lifting (literally), a player can tap on the four sides of the screen to move Flip wherever they want him to go. At times, this can be a frenetic exercise to keep up with the rapid on-screen action.
Both the title and character of the game are charmingly named, a tongue-in-cheek named for the iPhone and iPad’s accelerometer functions that are used in the game — tilting and rotating the playfield as of the principle game mechanics.
Just as important as the game itself is the game behind the game, which is about “tilting the real world.” The accumulated points can be assigned to an ecological hotspot, like the Eyjafjallajokull Volcano eruption earlier this year in Iceland or the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A map on the TiltWorld.com website shows a geo-coded global layout where players are most active, displaying the total world points in play, a world score of total TiltPoints accumulated and the current challenge players are aiming to take on. Nicole wants to be able to correlate the TiltPoints, as virtual goods, to real-world value and therefore make a tangible difference in places around the world where it could do the most good.
As another tip of the hat to its environmental roots and as a promotion, on Earth Day (April 22), Tilt HD was made available for free from the App Store. As a result, as Lazarro informed me, the game peaked as a top 10 iPad app in 10 countries and was in the top three in four countries.
Compared to some iPad games that run up against the double-digit mark of $10, Tilt HD is priced at a comparably modest $4.99 from the App Store. The iPhone version, which is currently in advanced beta, should be available this summer for $2.99. In short, this is a game where making a difference, feeling like a community in a competitive and cooperative fashion, and having fun can all co-exist in one game title. Tilt HD is definitely worth checking out.
Xenocipher has been involved in the game industry in various roles for about 10 years. He know the ins, outs and in-betweens of the industry, but sometimes, he thinks it's just fun to sit down and play a title as a gamer ought to see a game. When he's got the time, he's into photography, travel, a good party every now and again, and of course, playing games. One day, Xenocipher will write the great American novel and travel Route 66, but until then, he's enjoying the ride.
