App Review: Paper Wings

Chirpy, cheery and fun - these are just a few of the adjectives that can be used to describe Paper Wings, a mobile game from Fil Games that's billed as an environmentally-conscious time-filler.

Paper Wings is a basic left-and-right console game with very pretty effects centered around origami avians on origami landscapes; hence the name. Other than that, there's really nothing much else to say about it - gameplay is really that basic.

The Premise

You control a bird. The bird flies around, avoiding obstacles and collecting enough points to advance to the next level, where things get even more dangerous.

The Aesthetics

Paper Wings is a thing of beauty, and I don't say this lightly. Everything is rendered in brilliant color and surreal landscapes. And the truly awesome thing is the simplicity of the entire setup. For a game so basic, it certainly is well put-together.

The Experience

It's tranquil, its cute, and it's light-hearted gaming activity unless you take it too seriously. Paper Wings is as much about ecological awareness as it is about scoring points.

The Interface

Left, right. Tap and hold to rotate. Release to let the bird glide using momentum. Takes a while to get the hang of.

What I liked

I could spend all day raving about the sheer aesthetic beauty of this game. Suffice to say, Paper Wings has gorgeous backdrops and simple but breathtaking animation. The movement of the birds can be stiff, but that can easily be excused by the fact that they are supposed to be paper birds. However, the way they're able to glide through the screen is just magical in its implementation.

The sound effects - birds chirping and cawing, wings flapping, wind whooshing, water splashing - are masterfully done. It has an incredibly calming effect. There's even a challenge based upon sound effects! And speaking of that...

Challenges are creatively done. Some of them require you to explore the interface and discover winning combinations.

The variety of the birds on offer is mind-boggling. Once you accumulate a certain number of coins or achieve a certain number of tasks, you unlock a new bird. My personal favorite is the crow.

Little touches. The interface interacts with you in unexpected ways. It's really cute.

There's even plenty of ecological commentary within the app, along with how we can preserve avian wildlife. A mobile game with a climate conscience! Wow!

What I didn't

Emotional manipulation. The bird says it's missed you if you're gone long enough. Nice touch, I guess, but I really could do without the feels, dammit!

Video-watching is thankfully optional if you don't mind missing out on certain birds and replaying levels from scratch. Because their videos are pretty grating.

Having the entire level lost as soon as even one coin sinks into the water seems to me a bit too draconian. This pretty much means constant replaying of levels (and video-watching if you don't want to replay a level) if you get a less-than-perfect score.

There's a bonus associated with catching a coin immediately after it descends from the sky, but it's annoyingly inconsistent as to how it's implemented. Sometimes you need to catch it as soon as it appears, other times you can get away with a one-second delay.

Conclusion

This is a great app to have in your phone if you like a nice soothing distraction. Gameplay isn't groundbreaking exactly, but you'll get plenty of kicks out of this nonetheless. Paper Wings is a little more than your run-of-the-mill mobile game - it's a labor of love, and it shows.

My Rating

6.5 / 10

This game is totally fly!
T___T