Full Review

Animal lovers beware: Tongue Tied! by Mojo Bones is so insanely, heartwarmingly, saccharin coatedly loveable that you may want to buy it on impulse... don't. Without the incredibly affectionate characters of Mick and Ralph (the tongue-tied doggy-duo), you might just throw your iDevice at a wall, so stay a while and listen before making that final decision.

Each of the game's 50 currently available levels is a physics playground with the lovable dogs acting as your tool for point scoring as you assit them on their journey. Their fantastically elastic tongues make for a fantastically bouncy tether that can be used to hang, swing and 'ping' (slingshot) their way past hazards such as basic pitfalls, hot coals and even explosive charges.

The game is controlled via intuitive single-touch controls, making it an easy game to pick up and play. Tapping the dogs will make them fall off the platform they're on (often to initiate a dangle), while dragging one of the dogs allows you to either use them as a slingshot or simply flick and swing them around. A handy tutorial helps to teach players about new hazards or objects the dogs can interact with (such as sticking to mud or swinging tires), meaning you're never left scratching your head.

That is until you put things in to practice.

It's almost as if there's two sets of physics to contend with: one that applies when one of the dogs is firmly on a platform, the other when they're near an edge. This is a necessity given the need to use swinging or pinging to jump gaps, however it's all too easy to launch too early or in some cases too late as you're not given the room to get enough momentum.

Things are further complicated by the forced speed at which the camera travels, meaning it's possible to have Mick or Ralph fall off an edge before you can even see it; waiting would seem like the logical solution, but given the timing of some jumps and the nature of their tethered rubbery tongues it's not always possible - add on top of this a lack of checkpoints and you'll be restarting a level for a minor physics flub even if you're inches from the exit.

Conceptually, Tongue Tied! is fresh and exciting as it take advantage of the iOS platform in a new way while having everything you'd expect of an App Store title: cute characters, catchy tunes, and more unlockables than you can shake a doggy bag at. It even packs in objectives to keep you motivated when all else fails...

However as things stand it's hard to forgive its combination of inconsistent controls, forced pacing and lack of checkpoints when you're forced to restart a level because one of the dogs snapped back at the wrong time - something entirely out of your control.

Tongue Tied! is an iOS classic waiting to happen and once it's tweaked it'll be a hard game to put down.

App Store Info