FloodLand

Summary

"It's raining men, Hallelujah..." If my band were called “Weather Girls” I’m sure I’d be singing a similar tune. As the years go on this song about very odd forms of precipitation is still a hit at parties—it’s the kind of track that will put people in a good mood.

Rain is the common denominator: today’s featured app “FloodLand” is also soaked through with the stuff. The name conjures up images of recent events on the Australian west coast. Fortunately, however, the game isn’t about natural disasters… it’s all about testing your own skills.

Want to know more about “FloodLand”? Read on and all will be revealed!
 

“FloodLand” – Keep collecting water even though everything’s already flooded

“FloodLand”—the name pretty much says it all. Everything is flooded, a beat up bucket floats by the remains of an abandoned house, and there isn’t a soul to be seen.

The cause for the flood seems to be a burst pipe in the house next door as water keeps seeping out from said building. Drops of different shapes and sizes ooze through the brickworks and drip down at different speeds. You have to be really quick as the goal is to use the bucket and try and catch every single drop. You’ll be awarded with points for your efforts… and at the same time the water level will rise every time a drop doesn’t make it into the bucket. The game’s over when the bucket is filled to the brim and the water has reached the roof.

A few nasty little things are lurking along the way, waiting to trip you up: a roof tile may drop down and cause your bucket to tip over if it hits it, or else a wind might chime up causing the drops to fly sideways.

Varying degrees of difficulty challenge your skills

"FloodLand" comes in three different degrees of difficulty:

• Beginners
• Advanced
• Experts

The more advanced you play the faster the drops will be dripping and dropping. The amount of drops also increases. In a word: it becomes more and more challenging. The more drops you manage to collect the more the amount of drops increases.

Bottom line:
The gameplay is pretty basic—and that’s a good thing as you can pretty much start playing straight away. And it’s lots of fun... at least for a certain amount of time, because after a while the game either gets to be too complicated or else a bit boring.

 

The game’s controls are based on movement sensors. The bucket moves to the right and left accordingly to where you tip your phone. You catch the drops by holding your bucket beneath them before the hit the floor.

You can make adjustments to several settings. The game’s help page is very informative.

This game’s weak point – as is still so often the case with Android – are the graphics. “FloodLand” just doesn’t look very neat or put together and both graphics and animation leave a lot to be desired. This kills some of the fun that could be had playing this game.

It’s also very hard to see your score as it's hidden at the top right hand side of the screen. How many points you’re awarded per drop isn’t clear.

Controls aren’t exactly the cat’s whiskers, either. The bucket doesn’t react quickly enough and it happened a few times that I couldn’t make out whether drops had made it into the bucket or had splashed onto the ground. At times there are so many drops pouring out of the brickworks that it becomes impossible to catch them all, even if you’ve gotten plenty of practice.

Bottom line:
AndroidPIT has a good working relationship with the developers who created “FloodLand”, which is why it’s hard for us to score this game so harshly. But the bottom line is that it still seems like a bit of work-in-progress rather than the kind of app you’d be willing to shell out money for. Furthermore, the app’s visuals just aren’t up to par and caused a few stars to ger knocked off the rating. We even considered giving this app an even lower rating, but the fact is that it has potential and it’s the kind of game that could be lots of fun if more time and energy were to be invested in it.

 

"FloodLand" runs pretty smoothly—no crashes. The app requires 1,88 MB and App2SD isn’t supported.

"FloodLand" can be purchased for EUR 0,89 in the AndroidPIT App Center or Google Market. Considering what it is that you’re getting the price doesn’t seem justified.