Splode Review

Splode's simplicity is a double-edged sword, since it is highly polished but lacks variety. Its bare-bones approach offers a soothing, mindless escape from reality that only lasts for a little while.

The goal is to create a chain reaction of exploding splodes, starting them off with a single explosion anywhere on the screen. In order to pass each level, you must activate a certain number of splodes.

There isn’t much else to the gameplay beyond this simple concept. We’d have loved to see more variety, like different types of splodes. Adding this kind of depth would bring with it more strategic gameplay, which is currently lacking.

We did find some strategy in Splode's score attack mode, where you have five taps to reach 50 activated splodes, after which your taps are replenished and you’ve got to reach a new goal. You’ll also gain bonus taps for clearing 75% of the splodes and 10 bonus points for clearing them all. However, the lack of online leaderboards left us with little reason to continue trying for higher scores.

Splode’s greatest asset is its production values, which are top-notch. The graphics look like something out of World of Goo’s world and become colorful as you successfully chain together splodes. Also, each splode explosion emits a musical note, so chain explosions end up creating a harmony.

Splode is a universal app, with Retina-optimized graphics on the iPhone 4. Even though it's short-lived, Splode is immersive and makes up in part for its lack of variety with great production values.