Inside all of us there is a little child that desperately wants to slingshot fragile objects at moving targets. Chuck Gnome let’s that inner child achieve that urge for only $1.99.
Now that I think about it, I don’t even know why garden gnomes exist. Decoration? Mini garden scarecrows? And why are they so creepy? Whenever I think of a gnome, I recall some show I watched when I was younger and they came to life and attacked their unsuspecting owners, so it makes sense that this game thrives on the feeling of wanting to fling them off into the distance hitting moving targets and objects. Although in this game, the gnomes are benign and aren’t trying to kill you, but exist as your weapons to subdue the enemy and rescue the princess. Works for me!
Anyway, this game is pretty cool. It relies on the basic function of flinging the gnomes, and trying to get a high score by hitting as many things as possible. The trick is being able to aim the gnomes in such a way, that your timing and angle mesh perfectly for each shot so that you hit as many moving targets as humanly possible. Sound more complicated than you thought? Well is it. This level of difficulty is what will keep people from putting this game down. The funny yelling gnomes will probably do that as well, and the great graphics too.
Another cool feature is that you can tilt your phone left or right to have the view pan to the sides so that you can see a bit more of the targets for a few extra split seconds before they escape off your screen. The developers call this 2.5D. This doesn’t really make sense to me, since you can’t have half of a dimension, but I guess I’m being too nit picky. It somewhat makes sense since it makes the game seem 3D when truly it’s not. Overall, the game is pretty cool. It takes the simple idea of a carnival shooter, and makes it a lot more complicated. The game would probably work better on an iPad, with the more real-estate to be able to aim your shots in such a short amount of time, but I guess we’ll have to make do with the iPhone version. For now.
