Blog

The voice of Paperboy, Co-Founder of EA Sports releases Karuki.

Pretty random, eh? The folks at Portable Zoo (makers of Quick Turn and Letter Bug) have got some interesting game industry veterans working over there. Most interesting of them all is their CEO Don Traeger, also known as the voice of Paperboy and Co-Founder of EA sports. But they're not all just impressive resumes! They've also got a handle on that whole "game making" thing they're trying to take a stab at. They recently released the seemingly under the radar chalk themed Karuki on the app store. One look at their trailer and with the introductory price of 99 cents I decided to give it a go. Diagnosis? Enjoyable!

The name of the gaming is helping Karuki, a pajama wearing happy go lucky round fella, collect as many gems and smaller characters, known as Followers, as possible. Karuki is quite the bouncy fellow, you maneuver him around by bouncing him off of quickly drawn chalk lines that will propel him around around the level in different directions (all dependant on the angle of your line, of course). The more gems and Followers he touches before he reaches the exit the more points you'll receive. As you'd expect there are foes and baddies along the way in the form of skulls, wizards and water. Touch one of these and the game will be over or you'll receive some damage.

The art direction is all chalk themed and has a nice charm behind it. The mechanic of drawing lines works as expected and overall there really isn't a too many negative things to say about it. Karuki doesn't reinvent the wheel or do anything outrageously special, but for current price of 99 cents it's a fun time waster that's worth looking into.