Touchgrind, without a doubt, has the most intriguing use of a touch screen to date. The game controls just like the fingerboards that kids still play with today. The developer Illusion Labs really nailed the feel of this intriguing pastime and whether you enjoy skateboarding or not, you have to give them credit for taking a chance at a very unique control scheme.
Touchgrind has a steep learning curve. I absolutely can not stress this enough. My first few attempts at just popping an ollie failed miserably and I was tempted to just stop trying and walk away forever from the world of digital fingerboarding. As time progressed, I became familiar with the controls and everything felt natural. Just keep trying, you will get the controls, I promise.
It is difficult to explain how great it feels to do skateboard tricks on your iPhone/iPod Touch. Your index and middle fingers do all of the controlling of the board. Use your back finger to pop and the second finger to flick the board. When the board is in the air you can stomp down with your fingers to stop the rotation of the board to land whatever crazy trick you just pulled. You are able to do every skateboard trick imaginable just with the tips of your two fingers and it’s great.
The top down view gets to share some of the praise and criticism for the unique feel of the game. This view is great for controlling the board but makes it awfully difficult to see where you are going. Indicator bubbles appear when you are near rails or jumps but it is still difficult to gauge when to jump or maneuver around objects. A zoom button is located in the bottom right corner of the screen so you can mentally map out where you want to be going. This view helps but you are unable to control the board when the camera is zoomed out. In the end this is the only view the developers could have chosen for the game, you just have to take the good with the bad.
When the game is first launched there are a few options to choose from. You can watch a bunch of how-to videos showing off specific tricks. A “Warm Up” area is in place for you to skate around a small course without a timer or objective, just to get a feel for the board. The “Jam Session” is also not timed so you can position your board for a best trick score and finally there is the “Competition”. You will spend most of your time competing with yourself here. A timer is set at 100 seconds and you must string together enough tricks to attain the ultimate high score. Your score multiplier varies on the tricks you do or what objects you grind on. If you fail and fall off of your board, the multiplier disappears.
The variety of courses is extremely slim. Only two variations exist. One is in the “Warm Up” section of the game and the other course is used for both the “Jam Session” and “Competition”. The variety of objects to hit in the “Competition” mode is great but there just needs to be more courses, or even a half pipe. The developers say the game is built on a “Game 2.0″ concept where gamers can chime in and tell the developers what it is they want included in the next build of the game.
The game begins with only a single board unlocked. You must participate in the “Competition” to earn new boards. Various point levels must be obtained to unlock the rest of the boards all the way up to 1.5 million points. It seems like a daunting task, but spend enough time playing and you will be able to unlock at least most of the boards.
There needs to be some sort of head-to-head interaction. Whether it’s just online leaderboards or a whole set of multiplayer options. I will take whatever I can get because I can only beat my high score so many times before I want to show off my skills to the world of digital fingerboarding. This game is just begging for a H-O-R-S-E style online multiplayer option.
This is version 1.0 of Touchgrind. Illusion Labs has room for improvement, especially in the area of adding variety to the game play but the concept and controls are spot on. Touchgrind is exactly what the App Store and iPhone/iPod Touch needs in a game to sustain the hype. Developers need to think up new and exciting ways to utilize the features of this great gaming platform and Illusion Labs has done that with Touchgrind.
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