games rarely make use of decent story telling and instead, rely on jump scares and loud

sound effects. So why then, can a side-scrolling action adventure mobile game, with no story

and no identifiable protagonist, bring those odd feelings to the surface?

Like all well-designed action platformers, the controls are simple and slick. You tap

the screen to make your little guy flap and keep that tap held to make him continuously

flap upwards. Your goal? To navigate the dangerous terrain and reach the escape pipe at the end

of each level. The game has what can best be referred to as a loose auto-scrolling mechanism.

Occasionally, the screen itself will catch up to you and end your journey - but this

isn't too frustrating. While it is forced, it is somewhat based on the speed of your

little fluff ball and is quite manageable.

Along your way, you'll encounter spikes, crushers, explosive spores, saw blades, gears and so

many other nasty, horrible things. To make matters worse, each of these elements has

a kind of creepy, spindly feel to them, as though the terrain itself is alive.

It's not all darkness and pain in BADLAND however. To assist you, there's various powerups

that transform your little creature. Become sticky to uhh.. stick to things which is really

helpful when it comes to saw blade encounters. Change size to squeeze in to tight areas or

push things out of your way. You can even pick up a spinning power that can enable you

to travel quickly through certain segments or navigate along the ceiling to avoid danger.

You're able to change the game speed to make things a bit easier during some pretty intense

sections and.... without giving too much away, you can even change shape!

The game's hallmark is the ability to clone yourself. You can pick up little buddies along

the way that travel with you. In a pack, these little creatures are stronger than the sum

of their individual selves. They can push objects that might have otherwise been impossible

by yourself. Of course, trying to fit a lot of little things in to a small space isn't

necessarily a good idea and you can often find yourself getting stuck along the way.

But that's the beauty of the physics system in the game. It allows for some very interesting

and unusual things to happen.

While it is possible to save quite a few of these curious things, BADLAND's clever level

design will see that outcome almost never happen. Time after time, I've seen myself

amass upwards of 30 floaters only for something bad happen to 29 of them and find my last

surviving fuzzy scrape through by the skin of its.. er.. skin. Of course, not all of

these upgrades are mandatory. If you, willingly or not, skip over some of these, you can end

up in a completely different situation than if you did pick them up. The game is quite

versatile and the puzzles are all designed to be reflex based rather than head scratchers.

The single player campaign will launch with 40 levels. These levels are divided up in

to four stages of 10: Dawn, Noon, Dusk and Night. Each of the stages is colored according

to their relative time of day: Yellow, green, red and blue respectively. You need to complete

a stage in order to progress on to the next, however these can be replayed at any time

to attempt the challenges set forth in each. BADLAND even lets you play in "flow mode"

where the level breaks are taken out and you can play the game seamlessly travelling between

levels with no menu or introductory screens.

There are more levels planned for future updates and if that's not enough, the game comes complete

with a local multiplayer survival mode where you and up to three friends can go head to

head on the same device. On an iPhone this isn't necessarily a practicality, however

on the iPad's larger screen, is truly a joy... particularly if you're able to pull of a satisfyingly

cheap victory!

Overall, what stands out most about BADLAND is the ambience. The silhouette technique

that we saw in Limbo has been elevated to the next level. The colorful, painted background

artwork is simply some of the best I've seen.. not just for a mobile game, but perhaps any

game I've seen in recent times. Headphones are definitely recommended for this one as

the sound effects are amazing.. and I'm not talking the noises of the little creatures

and how they interact with the environment, but the ambient sounds of the jungle.. haunting

noises of bubbling swamps, insects and unseen beasties mix with grinding machinery far off

in the distance. It all makes for a feeling of danger and isolation.

BADLAND will release later this month as a universal app and the price is yet to be announced.

This has been top priority on my radar for quite some time and I'm extremely excited

to see it come out. I don't use this term often, but "Instabuy" springs to mind.

Thanks for joining me for today's look at BADLAND. Be sure to subscribe for a look at

some of the latest mobile games. This has been Alex for Game Mob. That's www.gamemob.com