It might not be Easter yet but there is an abundance of bunnies that need your help in this new iOS game from Skejo Studios.
Lab Bunnies is a casually addictive platformer/puzzler. The story behind is is that bunnies are being cloned by sheep (who’ve been cloned too of course). These bunnies are going through a series of experiments to test for intelligence.
Through each level you need to get your bunnies up and out of the area at the top “towards the light”. Be careful not to let any bunnies fall through the light on the ground… they won’t be coming back. On your way to the top you must attempt to collect various carrots that may be dotted about the level. Only the bunnies whose colour matches the carrot can pick it up. Later on there will be bunnies they will cause you to lose points if they touch the carrot first, so you have to try to be aware of where all your bunnies are as you cannot control individual bunnies. That’s right, every move you make is performed on all your bunnies at the same time. All fine and dandy if they are stacked together but when they are not, spacial awareness is really key.
Splendid one touch controls make this game so simple to play, but tricky to master. Tap the touch screen to make your bunnies jump straight up. Swipe diagonally in any direction to make them jump in that direction. Touch and slide to move your bunnies left or right without jumping. It really is as simple as all that.
The actual gameplay is so much more interesting. With various platforms, moving platforms and other dangerous elements, moving your bunnies needs some forward thinking. You have to be aware of where everyone is. Jumping to the left may move multiple bunnies to another platform but it may also plummet some to their deaths. One trick I did use at the start was to gather all bunnies into one corner, that way all my actions were easier to control. As the game progresses even this is trickier to accomplish.
Again with most games these days you can earn up to 3 carrots at the end of each level. I assume by completing the levels in a good time with the fewest moves and the most coloured carrots collected. I often only managed 1 carrot but it wasn’t particularly clear where I was failing. I thought I was quite an effifient bunny saver…guess not!
The difficulty ramps up as you would expect, introducing more colours, more platforms, more traps and other ways to move around the level area.
The graphics are nice, the idle animations for the bunnies are cute to watch. They always look mischievous. The story does progress in between levels with short still movies. I felt the music was a bit out of place, personally for me it didn’t fit the game so I opted to play with sound off.
Unfortunately iPhone/iPod only, there is no iPad version and I think this game could really benefit from a bigger screen.
Overall Lab Bunnies is easy and fun enough to keep you playing for your daily commutes.
7 bouncing bunnies of brilliant-but-basic fun out of 10