Grimm: Ride of the Perambulator

Rating: 4 out of 5 Downloads

From Syracuse University alumnus David Pietrandrea comes ‘Grimm: Ride of the Perambulator.’ The player takes control of a baby stuck in his carriage that has accidentally been left behind by his parents when they boarded a train. It’s up to the user to navigate through 10 obstacles and get the adorable little guy back to his fretting parents.

‘Grimm’ is a mix between the vintage ‘Super Mario Bros.’ and a Tim Burton movie. It has the platform element that defined Mario and Luigi’s adventures through the years. But the design has that dark, whimsical quality reminiscent of movies like ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ and ‘Corpse Bride.’ Those factors make the game both fun and visually pleasing.

Before each stage, including the detailed tutorial, the player reads a poem that offers clues into what’s in store for our temporarily adopted fella. Short and pleasant to read, it tempts the user to keep on going just to see what has to be done.

As for the game play itself, the carriage moves by tilting the device left or right. There are two on-screen buttons — one causes the carriage to jump and another hits the breaks. The user is given three lives, with three hearts in each life. Keep in mind that pedestrians roam around the game, and if you cross their path, they’ll try to punch the carriage, throwing it off course and losing you a heart. Lose all three, and a life is taken away. This will bring the carriage back to the most recently crossed checkpoint. When all three lives are spent, the game ends, forcing the user to start over. While there are some obstacles that take time to get used to, such as the barrels that sporadically drop from thin air and roll toward you, much like Donkey Kong, the timing can be perfected after just a couple of plays.

The tutorial is one of the best features of the game. While it has nothing to do with the general storyline, it demonstrates all of the cool things the baby carriage can do. And this is one powerful carriage. On the journey to the baby’s parents, the carriage will push barrels, knock down trees and even act as a parachute when it jumps off cliffs. There are also times when the user will have to literally throw the baby to take people out and move objects. Although this would normally cause social workers to be brought in to investigate, the baby has tough skin and will hop back into the carriage without a scratch.

While ‘Grimm’ is charming and just plain fun to play, there’s one serious problem: the inability to save progress. With this game being available for the iPhone and iPod touch, interruptions will be frequent. Whether it is changing songs on your playlist or checking your e-mail, it will be rare to have any single application running for a long period of time. Each time the user exits the app, the game resets, forcing the player to start over from the beginning. Hopefully, this flaw will be fixed with future updates.

The game’s classic platform, sweet graphics and easy-to-use controls make the 99 cents very well spent. Adding a feature to save the user’s progress would make it flawless. Besides, I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t want to play a game in which its main character is an indestructible baby.

nerivera@syr.edu

Published on January 18, 2011 at 12:00 pm