Appy Entertainment dances to the Tune Runner
iPhone get its Vib-Ribbon
One of the rare occasions when European PlayStation owners got one up on their American chums was Masaya Matsuura's Vib-Ribbon.
For some reason, it wasn't thought commercial enough to let Americans guide the funny bunny Vibri as he moved along a line of obstacles automatically generated by any music CD you loaded into your PlayStation.
Actually it didn't sell much in Europe either, but the idea was certainly a good one, and those American chaps at Appy Entertainment have taken it on with their new iPhone game.
Called Tune Runner, you have to guide Groov-EE, the dancing boom box, through the songs on your iPod.
Each track generates different obstacles in terms of shapes you have to trace on the touchscreen. Do it correctly and you'll turn them into groovy musical energy, but miss too many and Groov-EE explodes into nuts and bolts.
We should point out, this is fairly easy to do but what's really neat about the game is that every song played generates its own leaderboard, creating a huge potential viral competition around certain tracks. I'm guessing I'll be on my own with Relient K and Sufjan Stevens though.
Check out how it works in this video:
Also adding to the innovation is the in-app purchase business model.
The game will be free but has a pay wall in the form of a limited number of batteries for your robot. Every time you play the game, you'll use up a battery. Players can upgrade to a premium version of the game which does away with ads and batteries or recharge batteries by playing an in-app minigame.
A bit like Eliminate Pro's energy cells then.
Tune Runner should be out soon, and we'll certainly be checking out which are the hottest tunes.