A Little Turbulence’ Review – Fasten Your Seat Belts Folks, You’re In For A Bumpy Ride

‘A Little Turbulence’ Review – Fasten Your Seat Belts Folks, You’re In For A Bumpy Ride
Remember the internet in the early 2000s, when Myspace was all the rage and our modern versions of Facebook and Twitter were just specks on the horizon?

Remember the internet in the early 2000s, when Myspace was all the rage and our modern versions of Facebook and Twitter were just specks on the horizon?  Looking back, those were dark times for social media, but they were also very important in the history of indie gaming.  While Myspace was off doing its thing, various Flash game websites like Shockwave.com started popping up, giving independent developers a way to easily distribute their work to the masses.  This led to some excellent, innovative titles, but it also allowed ten times as many unoriginal atrocities to see the light of day.  It is in this latter tradition that With, LLC gives us A Little Turbulence .

One of the most popular types of games for developers recreate during this period was the “something-eat-something” genre.  These games were always the same: you start out as a small something and have to eat smaller somethings to grow, avoiding bigger somethings until you became big enough to eat them or got eaten yourself. Something like Osmos . You can still find these games under names likeand Fish Eat Fish (developers had a thing for fish back then, don’t ask me why).  Replace the word “something” up there with clouds and aircraft and you’ve got A Little Turbulence .  You start out as a small cloud and collect other clouds until you gain enough mass to become a giant death cloud that can somehow destroy even the most jumbo of jets.

Setting A Little Turbulence apart from its dozens of predecessors are three gameplay mechanics.  The first are power-ups.  As you float high above the Earth on your vaporous killing spree, you will encounter pickups double score, cloud magnet and invulnerability, among others.  Their effects are only active for a short period of time, but they go a long way in helping you survive to score a few extra points.  The second distinguishing factor is a health bar.  Most of this game’s contemporaries are a one-life-deal: if you get hit it’s game over.  Here, however, the amount of damage you can take is determined by your cloud’s mass.  The bigger it is, the tougher it is.  Finally there’s “rage mode”.  Once your cloud reaches its maximum size (that is, fills up its health bar entirely) it becomes a fearsome cyclone that wrecks everything in its path for a few seconds before returning to its docile, tiny cloud state.  The problem is that while all of these gameplay mechanics are put to good use, they don’t innovate.  There isn’t anything revolutionary about power-ups or health bars or frenzy modes.  Sure, they help you out while you play the game, but what do they bring to the table that you haven’t seen before?  Nothing.

Technically, A Little Turbulence is solidly built.  That’s good, right?  Sure.  While the game is solidly built , it’s not solidly designed .  Frankly, I was baffled by some of the design choices.  The titles is a “retro-style action … featuring 8-bit graphics, 4 original chip tunes…”.  There’s no reason for the game to feature 8-bit graphics.  Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t anything bad about building a game with 8-bit graphics if there is a reason to do so.  Maybe the project is an homage to an early 90s classic, or perhaps the title is a throwback to the days of old and that retro style is needed to make it work.  Frankly, A Little Turbulence is neither of those.  The iPhone has its Retina Display for a reason, and 8-bit graphics died out for a reason.  If you don’t have a good reason for using the latter, don’t.  Similarly, there is no reason for the game to feature chip tunes.  They are just as unnecessary as the 8-bit graphics and about 100 times more irritating.  The tuned in A Little Turbulence are so gratingly annoying at any volume level that after about ten minutes I was forced to turn the sound off altogether just to keep my ears from bleeding.  Thankfully the game lets you play your own music while you’re in the app, otherwise you’d be forced to float around listening to the ambient sounds of whatever environment you’re in at the time.

All of these poor design choices lead me to believe that the developer did not use the iPhone to its full potential.  That really is a shame, because all of the generic gameplay and lack of innovation could be forgiven if the game wasn’t annoying.  That’s just what the entire design does: it makes A Little Turbulence annoying to play.  And all the while I was playing the game, a little question kept nagging me: why?  Even the youngest, most inexperienced game developer, being a human and all, knows what it means to be annoying.  Then I realized what the issue was. With, LLC , the company behind the title, isn’t a game development company.  Instead, they are a “collaborative design and development shop”.  What does that even mean?  I’m not sure, but it appears that game development and publishing is not their primary area of expertise, what with A Little Turbulence being the only game to their credit.  Their other projects include Her Majesty of Sound , an app that shows what musical acts will be in Charlotte, NC on any given day, and Old Cane Creek , a brand of beer on which it is particularly difficult to find any information.

So to wrap it all up, what do we have with A Little Turbulence ?  A bland, annoying, generic game that’s vaguely addictive in the same way one might call “meth addictive”.  My recommendation?  If you have an extra $0.99 sitting around, you’d be better off spending it on literally anything else.  Maybe explore investment opportunities, maybe get a burrito from a street vendor.  Both solid options.

You can check out more from With, LLC and find out more about their projects on their website. The iOS version can be downloaded at the App Store, universal for iPhone and iPad for $0.99.

[review pros=”vaguely addictive gameplay” cons=”unnecessary 8-bit graphics/chip tunes, bad control scheme, bland gameplay, no innovation, no goal” score=”19″]