App of the Week (February 27, 2011): Float

We’ve noticed a lot of the most popular mobile games are based off simple childhood activities. From marbles, to board games, and even story books — the games that catch on best seem to have a Toy Story-esque appeal to kids that grown-ups wouldn’t mind indulging in either. (c’mon, you know you’ve watched Toy Story by yourself before!)

This week’s App of the Week is Float, which take the familiar childhood pastime of balloon juggling and updates it for the mobile 2.0 world.

Float is also notable for being the second game by Crawl Space Games to be selected for our App of the Week honor — their first being the highly popular Zombies Ala Mode.

Much like Zombies did, Float shows itself to be a game where special attention went into the details. Everything from the sound effects, to the perfectly melded in-game artwork and music demonstrate that the Crawl Space took extra time to give their game a very unique and identifiable feel (and that their art/music guy deserves a raise!).  Creating games with that “Crawl Space touch” seems to be carving a name for the studio in the games space, and garnering a distinctive reputation for their overall brand.

Oh, and don’t think it’s just all eye candy either. Float is just plain fun too!
Juggle the balloons in mid-air, without letting them drop onto the spikes at the bottom of the screen. As you scale up to higher levels, you get tasked to keep up more balloons. As an added incentive, you can hit the balloons after they drop low enough to the designated “Bonus Area” to multiply the points you get per hit (don’t let them drop too low, though!). On top of that, you get three different play levels: Normal level play, Time-based survival mode, and a Zen mode aimed at achieving Nirvana by letting you juggle balloons without any fear of “losing” if they fall to the bottom (it sure worked for me!). On top of that, there are additional play modes that you can buy for 99¢ — clever move, Crawl Space!

Congrats to the Crawl Space crew on scoring their second App of the Week, and netting another three months of free Corona for their win. Seriously, these guys could just crank out a game every few months and not ever pay us another dime for Corona again if they keep on winning – on second thought, anyone could do that!