Super Yum Yum 3 (iPhone) Review

Costas Stephanides’s Review

An excellent casual puzzler

Reviewing Super Yum Yum 3 does bring a smile to my face. The Super Yum Yum series has been around for 4 years on plain old mobiles. Those were dark days when the network operator was king and independent developers had an near impossible task of pushing original games onto the world. Fast forward a few years and the App Store allows anybody with a flair for graphics and coding launch a game to millions of people. Kudos to the guys at Airplay UK for relaunching Super Yum Yum onto the App Store. This 'third' instalment, is actually the java version formerly known as Super Yum Yum 2 except with the obvious graphically rejuvenation.

The beauty of these older java games is the gameplay. Let's face it, graphics on these older phones were never that great and so the developers had to focus on bringing addictive gameplay. Now, with the iPhone version, we have great gameplay coupled with great graphics which is the perfect combination.

In Super Yum Yum 3, you are Leon the Chameleon and it's your job to travel round the worlds collecting fruit and rescuing your babies from the evil but funny looking Ms Tum Tum. What sounds like a standard platform game is actually a cunning puzzle game. Leon can eat fruit by sticking his tongue out and mystically moving towards the fruit before eating it. However, he can only eat fruit that is the same colour as he is. For example, if Leon is red then its strawberries for breakfast. Each fruit has a coloured leaf at the top and after Leon has eaten the fruit he will change colour to match the leaf of that piece. It sounds more complicated than it is and the learning curve is easy enough for you to get the basic idea.

There are 4 worlds in total which all have their own theme, each world is split into a number of smaller 'islands'. Each island will have a set of levels to solve, collect enough fruit to move on to the next island (after visiting the weighing station). The beauty of the game is that you don't need to get 100% for every level. Just get enough to find your way to the exit and then gradually unlock more and more levels.

The graphics are lush, bright and very colourful. It may look like a kid's game but there's plenty of tactics to it and the lack of an undo function makes for some challenging gameplay. According to the blurb, there are 36 levels to explore. I'm on the third world now and have only collected 260 pieces of fruit out of 741; hopefully that gives you an idea to its vastness.

Controlling Leon is glorious. Back on java if you wanted to move around the screen, you would have to use the D-pad or the key pad. To navigate around some of the more intricate levels would require plenty of button presses. That is part and parcel of java gaming. It would have been forgivable for AirplayUK to have incorporated a virtual D-pad and kept the mechanics very similar to the original. Thankfully, they have taken the time to design the controls specifically for the touchscreen. To get from A to B you no longer need to press a dozen buttons in sequence, simply touch your end destination and as long as there is a valid path, Leon will automatically do the rest. It's a simple thing but one that makes this old reviewer smile. To eat the fruit, swipe in the direction and Leon will extend his tongue.

The game has the 'one more go' addictive flavour, particularly as you don't have to complete everything all in one go. It's perfect for a casual play allowing you to slowly progress through the game while getting a better understanding of the required strategies.

The developers reckon there's about 8-10 hours of game time if you want to collect every piece of fruit. The first lucky 25 that manage it can win a Super Yum Yum mouse mat that is just as colourful as the game itself.