iPhone App Reviews

Tux Rider World Challenge

T.J. Brumfield | Jul 21, 2009 Games

User rating: (2 votes, average: 2.50 out of 5)

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Tux Rider World Challenge is an interesting app on a variety of levels. I immediately gravitated to it because I know it is based on an open source game, Tux Racer. Tux Racer itself has passed through many hands over the years, which is part of the beauty of open source software. When one developer stops updating a title, the source code (or instructions to make the program) are freely available for someone else to pick up and continue. And over the past nine years, that is precisely what has happened several times with Tux Racer.

That also means that Tux Rider is open source as well. You can go to Barlow Software’s website, download the source code, and release your own modified version so long as you also release your version as open source. It isn’t very effective to have two active forks competing though. Any new features you developed, the original would be able to integrate when you released your source code.

This app is also very unique in that Barlow Software has partnered with Zag Skis, Furlon Snowboards and Julbo Eyewear to provide real prizes to users of the app. Barlow is hosting a World Challenge. Your times in the game go on a global leaderboard, where you are eligible to win prizes from the aforementioned partners. In return, those partners are getting advertising in the game. The advertising doesn’t seem out of place, as the company logos simply appear as splashes where a developer splash might normally appear. And the advertising partners certainly fit the frosty theme of the game.

What also jumped out at me were the songs included in the game. Barlow Software actually included songs from a number of bands. The songs are pretty catchy. Links to the bands’ respective websites are included in the in-game credits. I intend to check the bands out.

And while this is a port of an existing PC game, Barlow has done a fine job customizing the game for the iPhone hardware, and making the game unique from previous versions. The music and World Challenge I’ve already touched upon. The game also has a Facebook connect feature that can post to your Facebook wall if you want to brag about your achievements within the game.

I was disappointed that it didn’t scour my Facebook friends to see if any of them were playing this game, and add them to my in game friends list. The game doesn’t scour my Contacts list from the phone either. All in game friends must be manually added by entering their nick name.

In the game, you play as Tux, the lovable Linux mascot. Once again, Tux demonstrates how awesome he is by flying down icy paths, racing at speeds over 200 kilometers per hour.

Controls are simple, explained with in-game tutorials, and appropriate for the hardware. You tilt to slide left and right. Pressing in the bottom-right corner of the screen makes Tux paddle. When you are going below a certain speed, paddling will increase your speed, but when you are going really fast, paddling actually slows you down. It pays to keep an eye on the speedometer to know whether or not you should be paddling.

Pressing in the upper-right corner of the screen builds energy to perform jumps. You will also jump naturally when hitting bumps. When in the air, you can press paddle to glide farther. You can also perform eight different tricks mid-air by experimenting with multi-touch and shaking the iPhone.

Gameplay is smooth, fluid, and just challenging enough to keep my playing without frustrating me. People who have played the game on their PC will have a slight advantage in familiarity with the levels. And if there is only one gripe with this game, is that not many levels are included. I suggested to Barlow that there are a few other open source levels he might be able to integrate.

Despite the low number of levels, replay value is high enough as there is rarely one clear path through the level. The flags mark a recommended path, but you do not absolutely have to take that path. There is certainly motivation to replay levels and attempt to beat your personal score, beat your friends’ score, become the best in your country rankings, and even global rankings. The prizes are additional incentive here.

You can also play each level in Time Trial mode, or Classic mode. Classic mode emulates the standard gameplay of the PC version, where you have to collect fishes in the level. This mode though somewhat forces you to take one specific path though each level to collect the fishes.

You can also play each level in first-person or third-person view. Overall this is a solid port of a solid game, with some eye-catching twists. While this is the first open-source title I’ve seen on the iPhone, I assume it won’t be the last.