Switchaball – Review – Drop balls, flip switches, challenge your logic skills

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By: Simon Foster

Version #: 1.1.0

Date Released: 2011-12-04

Developer: Drippy Cat Software

Price: 0.99

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Don’t be frightened by the slightly creepy cat that greets you when you launch Switchaball, a new game for the iPhone and iPod touch. (A separate HD version is available for the iPad.) That’s just the mascot of Drippy Cat Software, the app’s developer. You’ll be relieved perhaps to know that Switchaball has nothing to do with a soaking wet and scary-looking feline fellow. In fact, you need only to tap the cat to start learning the ropes and enjoying the gameplay of Switchaball, either in one-player or two-player mode.

Rather than drippy cats, what you’ll be playing with are multicolored balls. Your job is to drop these balls one at a time along any of the eight lanes on the playing screen into the holes at the bottom, by touching anywhere on the lane you wish to drop the next ball. But it’s certainly not as easy as it sounds. The game has a separate, clearly structured tutorial for each of the two modes, explaining the nuts and bolts of this seemingly familiar but actually original game.

Although the graphics here are not exactly what you’d call extraordinary, the game offers plenty of challenges you probably haven’t seen elsewhere. These challenges come in the form of single-pole flip switches, double-pole butterfly switches, teleporter, splitters or duplicators, and color changers. These curious contraptions are scattered on the screen and arranged differently for every level. They either obstruct or enable your progress within the game, depending chiefly on how well you decide which ball to drop on which lane.

Your goal in each level is to drop all twelve balls before the life tube at the bottom of the screen becomes empty. The idea is to refill the life tube with more water by scoring points with every successfully dropped ball. Not for nothing are the balls multicolored: each color corresponds to a different number of points. It is therefore important to not drop a ball on top of another as the first ball will be popped by the newly dropped ball.

Similarly, when a ball reaches the bottom of a lane, it stays there for a little while with a popper above it, so, unless you’re short on time or you’re working on a plan, better to avoid dropping a ball onto the popper. But keep in mind that the longer you play, the faster the water on the life tube is reduced. Consider that another challenge in this innovative and potentially addictive game of balls, switches, and—no, not cats—logic.