Hmm…. that escalated pretty quickly. I found myself dropping that comment while playing Crazy Cricket’s latest retro-inspired iOS title, The Tapping Dead. It’s like this: imagine the original Mario Bros (the one on the NES with Mario and Luigi exterminating those bunch of tortoises in the sewers), but with your in-game character is moving automatically and the only thing you can control is when and where to stop (basically by tapping and holding on the screen).
Instead of you have a bunch of zombies running around the levels, and while these can temporarily impede you on your way to the exit in each level, you need to be careful not to get into contact with them, since for obvious reasons you’ll lose a life every time that happens (it gets even worse, but more on that later). You may have noticed the remark that I made earlier and if you have deduced that this game is crazy difficult, you have performed admirably, you modern-day Sherlock.
Knowing when and where to stop is a matter of great importance in The Tapping Dead. Most often I found myself hanging around the myriad of ladders in each of the levels, watching zombie zipping by in shopping carts, before deciding it was safe to get moving. Why this fuss, you ask, since in most games, this will just result in loss of (virtual) life and a restart? Well, the guys at Crazy Cricket took a page out of Candy Crush Saga when it comes to continues….
Yup, you read that right. Once you run out of lives, you can a. wait a certain duration to get a fresh attempt at the game, or use up your coins to purchase a life. Oh by the way, coins are either earned through playing (good luck with obtaining it this way, since the game is frigging tough), or via good-old-in-app-purchase (the developers got to eat too you know).
I play Candy Crush Saga and never paid a dime for continues, so I’m quite OK about the whole thing, but I know of others who chaff at the thought of paying to immediately continue playing a game. If you belong in that camp, no amount of talk about the rather awesom retro graphics (in fact, the levels kinda remind me of a nightmarish Tiny Tower) and the fun/easy to learn/sadistic gameplay will not persuade you to try out the game.
Those with an open mind however, will find a gem that fits the cliche, easy to learn, hard to master. Nine Over Ten 9/10 rates The Tapping Dead at a 4 out of 5. You can check out the game over at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-tapping-dead/id637724301?mt=8, it’s available for FREE on the iTunes App Store.
A review code was provided to Nineoverten.com for the purpose of this review.
