I love it when a game’s title explains to you perfectly what you’ll be doing in the game.  In Tap Pop Balloon, you’ll tap the screen to pop floating balloons for points.  Don’t let any float away to the top of the screen or you’ll lose a heart!  Lose all three of your hearts and it’s Game Over.  Also watch out for balloon with pictures of skulls on them.  If you tap one of those, you’ll immediately lose the game, no matter how many hearts you have!  It’s available as a free-to-play download on mobile devices, but reviewed on iPad here.

Aside from skulls, other balloons have pictures of them that act as power-ups.  Some will change all the colors of the balloons to the same color so you can get combo points.  Others will make balloons split into smaller ones, etc.  You can unlock backgrounds and music, too, including a Christmas one, which is neat.

There are three main modes of play.  Classic has the same rules that I described above.  Arcade gives you one minute to get the highest score.  Instead of losing hearts when balloons float away or when you tap a skull balloon, you’ll just lose time.  Keep a watch for balloons with hourglass pictures on them that will increase your time.  Finally in Challenge mode, you have a minute and a half to get a high score, but you don’t have to worry about skulls.  So you can just tap away like a madman playing an endless clicker!

Aside from being a bit amateurish, really the only other problem I had with the game is that when you change the background, the pictures of the balloons also change.  So if you change it to the Christmas skin, you have to watch out for balloons with snowman heads instead of skulls, which is a bit misleading.  But otherwise, this is a decent simple time waster.

Kid Factor:

Nothing violent or objectionable here, as you’re just popping balloons.  Reading skill is helpful for the menu text, but not necessary just to play.  Parental supervision is recommended for the in-game purchases and ads.

Tags: Game Reviews