I received an interesting email in my inbox this morning: the subject was simply “Get Hairy Balls Now!” I thought it was simply Jonathan being Jonathan, but not this time.
Turns out there’s a new game available on the iOS App Store, aptly titled Hairy Balls.
The game comes from Australian developer Redtribe, and after putting a couple hours into it, I’m actually having a lot of fun. Thankfully, the game has nothing to do with testicles. Instead, the “Hairy Balls” are simply hairy, spherical creatures. These hairy balls are hungry, and it’s up to you to get them to the appropriate food source! Check out the trailer and gameplay video below to get a better idea of the game:
The developer is obviously playing around with the title a lot, as I found myself immaturely laughing more than once during that trailer.
Basically, you need to get each ball onto the appropriately colored mushroom in a set amount of turns for each stage. It sounds simple, but the difficulty ramps up rather quickly. You can of course play each stage as many times as you need to solve it, and you also have hints available to you, which is where the developers introduced a really genius element.
You see, Hairy Balls is a free download. If you’re extremely logical (or persistent), you’ll be able to play through all 66 stages without paying a penny. If you need to use hints to progress, that’s where Hairy Balls will cost you. You start the game with a few free hints to get you going, and after that you’ll be buying hint packs through in-app purchases. Genius, and extremely fair in my opinion.
Redtribe states that the game is addicting, and I would definitely have to agree with them. I downloaded the title this morning to give it a quick try before work, but found myself returning many times throughout the day, eager to get through another stage or two. I managed my way through nearly 20 before I needed to use my hints.
The game looks and sounds great on both the iPhone and iPad. The game is bright and colorful, with high resolution, detailed sprites and a catchy upbeat soundtrack. I must commend Redtribe for including iCloud support in the game as well: progress is synced quickly and automatically between my iPhone and iPad, so I can play on whatever device I choose.
The only technical complaint I have with Hairy Balls is that the game doesn’t support the larger screen of the iPhone 5 or 5th Generation iPod Touch, an issue that I’m sure Redtribe will quickly resolve. It would simply work better and give you a closer view of the action if the game were to take up the whole screen.
Hairy Balls is a title that I can see people coming back to again and again. Whether you’ve only got a few minutes or an hour, you’re going to have enough time to make some progress. The cute visuals and upbeat audio also make the game a great learning tool for kids – the game gets hard, but could teach youngsters logical and critical thinking like few others can.
I have no problem recommending that you give Hairy Balls a download. It’s free and it’s fun, even with the awkward title. Just make sure that if someone asks what you’re doing, you tell them you’re playing Hairy Balls.
Hairy Balls scores a fuzzy 3.5/5. It’s not the best puzzle game available right now, but the price is right, and it’s nearly as addicting as they claim!
You can download Hairy Balls here!