Kumo Lumo

I’m a big fan of games that can find the challenge in the simplest things. My all time favorite is Crazy Taxi (iOS review coming this week!) because it’s based entirely on picking up passengers and dropping them off. The whole farming game phenomenon has certainly taken this to the next level. So have the likes of Angry Birds.

Kumo Lumo is a game about the weather. Kumo Lumo is a cloud, and the whole game is about raining on land to make things grow, or raining on bad guys to kill them. I never would have thought of rain clouds, but Chillingo and Blitz did a pretty good job making a game out of this.

The controls are as simple as the premise. You fly Kumo Lumo around the world by swiping left or right to make the planet rotate. You can also drag Kumo Lumo around the screen to position him to rain atop of his target, or to collect other clouds to replenish his water supply.

Kumo Lumo

This is a very gentle, mellow game. Though the stakes are as high as putting out fires and replenishing forests, everything happens slowly. If black clouds are coming, you probably have time to drag Kumo Lumo out of the way. If anything, you need to stretch each level out further to get three stars. Stars seem to be based on how many things you do before completing the level, so if you complete it too fast you’ll only get one star.

Levels goals include putting out X number of fires, growing X numbers of forests or extinguishing X number of enemies. They really thought of a lot of things you could do with a cloud: save whales, grow cities, fight evil boss clouds … It’s pretty easy to accomplish, and while the target age may be under 10, it’s still mildly fun. It does get old floating around the world raining on forest after forest, but if you’re looking for something that requires low concentration, Kumo Lumo is good for a few levels of easy gameplay.

Kumo Lumo

I like the way they factored some scientific rules into the gameplay. Creating more forests in turn creates more clouds, which in turn replenish Kumo Lumo’s water supply. I think they got it wrong with the mountains though. Raining on a mountain doesn’t make a mountain grow. And I don’t think sheep inflate and float into the sky, but it’s cute that they do in this game.

You can power up Kumo Lumo so he has a larger water supply, or receives the power to strike lightning down which is helpful for the quick eradication of volcanoes. However, the game encourages you to buy power-ups with real money a little too strongly. You can earn gold in the game, but it’s like one or two gold per level. That’s really slow when the minimum power-up is 20 gold.

Kumo Lumo

The graphics are good and it’s especially pleasing that the sky turns from day to night. The music is light and unobtrusive, and the sound effects are really quirky. Kumo Lumo does the job of finding yet another untapped realm for a video game. It’s pretty easy to solve, and you'll have some fun while you’re doing it. Not a classic, but for free (or freemium rather), it’s a cool treat.

 

App Store Link: Kumo Lumo for iPhone & iPad | By Chillingo Ltd | Price: Free | Version: 1.1 | 45.8 MB | Rating 4+

6.0 out of 10 arcade sushi rating

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