Whale Trail – Review – Help Willow the Whale fly in this gorgeous Tiny Wings-type game

Our rating:

By: ustwo Studio Ltd

Version #: 1.1

Date Released: 2011-12-15

Developer: ustwo

Price: 0.99

User Rating:

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As of this writing, the statistics section of Whale Trail on my iPad states that I have played a total of 35,587 seconds since I purchased the game. On my iPhone, it says 6,151 seconds. All in all, that’s roughly 11.5 hours spread across just a couple of weeks. I’m not usually one to spend an inordinate amount of time playing a game on my iPhone (I’d rather allocate that time to doing something productive, you know), so my apparent attachment with Whale Trail speaks volumes about the quality of the game.

Whale Trail is an uncomplicated side-scrolling game employing an uncomplicated method of control. As in that little-game-that-could called Tiny Wings, all you need to play Whale Trail is a finger. You tap and hold with one finger anywhere on your device’s screen to make the main game character go up, and you release that finger to let gravity take hold and make it go down.

The main game character, that is, the character you control, is a cute whale named Willow. But he’s no ordinary whale, seeing that he’s part of a world that’s also out of the ordinary. Willow is a whale on the run from his archnemesis, the betentacled Baron von Barry. To elude his enemy Willow must stay afloat in Rainbowland by collecting rainbow blubbles along the way. These blubbles serve as Willow’s fuel; if he goes on for a long stretch of time without collecting any blubbles until the fuel bar at the top left corner of the screen is exhausted, Willow simply falls to his demise, to the delight of Baron von Barry, who is just below the clouds waiting for Willow’s ultimate descent.

Although the control method couldn’t be any simpler, the actual act of controlling the aerodynamic Willow takes some practice. Once you get the hang of it, though, you’re on your way to hours and hours of rising and falling across Rainbowland. Willow’s motion follows a sinusoidal path, so it’s important to avoid tapping and releasing your finger a fraction of a second too early or too late, lest you miss some rainbow bubbles. Also, with a more pronounced sense of urgency, you risk hitting any of the thunder bros, dark and menacing clouds that when hit electrocutes Willow and decreases both your stored fuel and your hard-earned score multiplier. The only way to defeat the thunder bros is to collect seven stars along the way, which will trigger “frenzy mode.” While in frenzy mode you’re able to obliterate any thunder bros that you fly into as well as collect more rainbow bubbles than you normally would owing to Willow’s much larger gathering field.

The aforementioned mechanics apply to the game’s classic mode. Take away Baron von Barry, the fuel bar, and the frenzy mode and you have Willow’s Playground, a special game pack containg 32 unlockable levels that sees Willow undergoing obstacle course-type challenges.

Apart from the addictive single-touch gameplay, what makes Whale Trail such a joy to pick up and play again and again and again is the polished psychedelic graphics, including the colorful landscapes of Rainbowland and the amusing characters that populate it, coupled with its catchy background music. There’s actually a link in the app to the full-length YouTube video of the Whale Trail theme song performed apparently by Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals, and I won’t be surprised if from this little iOS game a spin-off animated short or even a feature film will soon be made.