Being a monarch must be taxing. Oh I’m not talking about the day to day turmoil of settling disputes and playing politics, but more when you're trying to smooch your girl-frog and some evil black furball comes along and kills the mood by sucking all the stars away. That transgression cannot stand! So in Swing King, you set off trying to collect all the stars back by flinging yourself from anchor point to anchor point, trying to reach the saddle of your flying unicorn before finally confronting your tormentor and punching him square in his giant eyeball. You know, most iPhone games have odd narrative context but this paragraph just gets more surreal the longer one dwells on it. Let's get onto the gameplay.

Chances are you've played this game type before. The king starts off dangling from an anchor point, and then you stretch him back, with the game showing your arced flight with a dotted line. You let rip, and hopefully he flies unhindered to either the next anchor point or the unicorn, collecting stars upon the way. The number of stars changes in each level, and a certain threshold will be needed to unlock the boss battle of each world.

Along the way plenty of little game gimmicks are thrown in, adding interest to the core mechanics. Sticky points can be tapped on the screen, there are cannons that can be aimed, walls to rebound off of, anchor points that can only be used once, and a boxing glove for destroying seemingly impenetrable barriers. Actually, rebounding is a large portion of the game and the level design, as often flinging or firing yourself at an angled wall will bounce you in the direction of some stars or the exit.

Sporting a very distinct storybook visual quality, Swing King exerts a certain level of odd and almost misplaced whimsy. The presentation really is just a backdrop to the mechanics rather than truly aiding them. The game though is fun enough for one of these physics flingers. You don't always receive the fidelity in stretching the King that a player would like, but there's plenty of levels to play through, stars to collect, and as the introduction alluded to, a very strange world to inhabit.