Whale Trail Review

Have you ever taken a mess of psychedelic drugs and drifted off into a candy-colored daydream? Or perhaps you’ve played Robot Unicorn Attack. Either way, you’ll know the basic level of creativity to expect from Whale Trail, the latest bizarro, rainbow-hued game to hit the App Store.

Like Tiny Wings and Mighty Fin, Whale Trail has you touch and release the screen to control your character’s altitude as he glides through the game’s environment. Even though you play a sea mammal in Whale Trail, the game takes place in the sky, and your goal is to collect colorful bubbles and avoid angry storm clouds on your way to a high score. If you run out of the energy you collect from the bubbles, or if you fall off the bottom of the screen, you die.

As you arc across the heavens, you’ll also find power-ups that make you temporarily invincible. In this state, you get loads of points for flying through clouds, especially if you’ve avoided being hit long enough to earn a double-digit score multiplier. Occasionally a helpful cloud will come by to eradicate the storm clouds and feed you a line of rainbow bubbles before he disappears. There’s no end to the game, but there are achievements to unlock and leaderboards to hold your high scores.

Of course, this is all well-trodden territory for a high score game on the App Store. What makes Whale Trail stand out is it’s fantastic presentation. The colors and scenery shift as you play, and the music is a delightful tune whose lyrics drift in and out depending on whether you're in the game or in the menu. Simply put, the game’s a stunner.

But even with its extraordinary presentation, you can only get so much mileage out of a one-button game. Whale Trail shows you all it has to offer in a matter of minutes. The leaderboards and achievements might be enough to keep you coming back for a while, but probably not for very long. Still, for a buck, Whale Trail is worth the ride if you have a few minutes of down time.