Paper Toss for iPhone: I Dare you Not To Smile
By: Hillel Fuld
No matter how many times I play games on the iPhone/iPod Touch, I never get enough of the graphics some of these games have. Call me old fashioned, but the fact that a game on a “tiny” mobile device can look so real and resemble a real life situation so much, is truly astounding. I have seen Paper Toss for iPhone in the top downloaded apps of the App Store for as long as I can remember, but I never bothered to download it, till today, and as I write this review, I am still smiling.
The developer, Backflip Studios, could have come up with a simple basketball game in which you have to flick the ball in the basket and that would have been mildly entertaining. Instead they thought out of the box and put the basket in an office, basement, or airport in the shape of a garbage bin. The ball is a piece of paper and the object of the game is to get the paper in the garbage, like almost any person who works in an office has done at one point or another.
The concept of the game is itself extremely entertaining, and the thought of a team of developers sitting around a table trying to come up with an idea for an iPhone app, and someone suggesting this, makes me laugh too. So the game has multiple levels, from Easy to Hard, and from office to basement or airport (how they chose these settings is beyond me, but I love it). Each level has a fan blowing and you have to take the direction and strength of the wind into consideration when flicking the paper ball toward the basket.
The free app has ads on top of the screen, which are totally non disruptive, but the game also comes in a non free no ad version. Paper Toss, from the very first screen, is engineered to perfection, with real life office sounds, funny comments by people who get hit by the ball, such as “No wonder you are getting fired, you suck at this”, as well as amazing graphics of a real office, basement, or airport environment. Even the home screen of one of the computers in the background is a real Windows background. The option to go to the Main Menu is a clipboard on the wall of the office, a sign on the wall of the airport, and a totally natural looking paper on the wall of the basement. Like I said, they thought of every detail. Even the background noise of the various settings are completely real life, such as announcements of flight departures in the airport.
It did not take long before I got a hang of this game, and from then on, it was all downhill, I was completely addicted. The levels increase in difficulty as the garbage is placed at a farther distance from you. Obviously, the farther the garbage, the more the fan’s wind has to be taken into account when flicking the ball. When you manage to get the ball into the basket, you are applauded by your co workers, and when you miss, you get a loud “Aww”. You are playing against a global scoreboard, which also makes the game that much more interesting.
The amazing part of this game for me, in addition to its addictive and challenging nature, are the graphics. Everything from the metal trash can to the animated real life paper ball is so real, it blows my mind that I am playing this game on a small 3.5 inch screen of a mobile device. I would do more than recommend this app to anyone, does not matter if you like games or not, this is one of those apps that will not only keep you occupied and entertained, it will also give you a great ice breaker in an awkward encounter, and enable you to show off the absolutely unprecedented graphic ability of Apple’s revolutionary mobile device.
Our Rating: 5/5
Developer: BackFlip Studios
