TUAW Exclusive: Nnooo's Pop for iPhone
Pop is a new game coming soon to the iPhone by a company called Nnooo, and TUAW got an exclusive look at the new app before the official announcement of the release later today. As you can see from the video preview above, it's a very simple, very casual game, but nevertheless offers some fun and quick touchscreen gameplay.
Pop was originally released on WiiWare, the Nintendo Wii's downloadable content service, and I was wrong in the video -- there are no PC or Mac versions out currently, so the App Store is the second platform the game will appear on. I also show off a similar "game" called Bubbles, put together by Jesse Grosjean (maker of Taskpaper and Writeroom) for his three-year old daughter (I said six in the video, but she's younger than that). Pop runs with that idea of popping bubbles and turns it into a timed and scored game that turns out to be pretty fun.
Click the link below to read more about Pop, including some features that aren't shown off in the video above.
Update: Pop is now available on the App Store.
In addition to the gameplay shown, Pop also offers a timed mode, and special rounds in between the waves that allow you to accomplish certain goals like meeting a score within a certain time. The game also has a "badge" system that will track when certain crieria are met in the game, such as reaching wave 10 or chaining together 20 bubbles. There's quite a bit of gameplay hidden in there, but Pop never really strays away from the core idea, which is that there are bubbles running across the screen, and your job is to pop them.
There are also various settings for the vibration and sound effects, and even a setting for color blind players (which unfortunately wasn't enabled in the build we played, but will reportedly change the shapes of bubbles so people who can't see color can still play). All in all, Pop seems like a fun game, especially for casual players and children, that takes a simple premise and runs a long way with it.
Nnooo has not yet announced a release date, but the app has been submitted to the App Store for review. They have let us know that the game will sell for what seems like a fair price of $4.99 (the game sold for $7 on the Wii, with some extra features like multiplayer). If you've got an iPhone game player in the house who might be looking for a simple arcade game, or want something yourself to pick and play without thinking too much about it, Pop hits the spot.
