Boy Loves Girl Review

Our Review by Jennifer Allen on February 9th, 2012

Rating:

:: TOUCHING

Share This:

A charming and memorable game about a boy desperate to impress a girl.

Developer: Grubby Hands
Price: $0.99
Version Reviewed: 1.3
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 4

Graphics / Sound Rating:

Game Controls Rating:

Gameplay Rating:

Replay Value Rating:

Overall Rating:

Review Update: 03/13/12, Version 1.5
Merely a month since its initial release and Boy Loves Girl has benefited from an update. Benefited is the ideal word too as it's a small yet useful update for the title. Most notably, Game Center support is now here. Players can compete for the most smiles collected in a level and check out the global leaderboard with ease. It's a small yet useful feature as surely no one can resist fighting for first place in any game.

More subtle yet extremely important is the difficulty adjustment. It's hard to pinpoint just what has been changed but it makes the controls feel more accurate and the whole experience less frustrating, especially when starting out.

~~I'm hopeful for achievements in a future update but for now,~~ we can all enjoy a slightly easier ride and a way to compete across the world.

I can tell a lot about how much I'm enjoying a game when I set out to take screenshots of it and find that I keep forgetting to do so. Yes, I was so busy enjoying Boy Loves Girl that taking screenshots took a lot longer than usual. This is something that's far from a complaint, of course!

Boy Loves Girl offers a storyline that's a bit different from the normal things we've all seen in video games. It's all about a young man who is determined to find the ultimate gift for the woman he loves. Obviously in order to make the game exciting, this is far from an easy task. As any cynical person will declare, wooing a woman is far from easy, especially the woman in Boy Loves Girl who seems obsessed with cute animals such as gazelles, kangaroos and baby elephants. She's clearly a woman that won't be satisfied with a box of chocolates and a romantic movie!

Gameplay is simple, certainly in comparison to the course of true love. The boy runs through each level while flying a kite made out of the moon. Along the way, he's given objectives such as to collect a sufficient number of smiles or to touch particular clouds. The level culminates in reaching the item that the girl so desires. Clouds are quite vicious things in the way though and will quite easily gobble up or electrocute the moon, depending on their type. The combination of optional objectives and simply completing a stage keeps things interesting and rewards the player swiftly.

Controls do take some mastering. Swiping up or down moves the moon up or down and stops it colliding with the evil clouds. It doesn't feel quite as intuitive as it could though. Drag based controls may have been more effective and swiping isn't as responsive as it should be. Once the practice is put into it however, the controls aren't so bad and it's still easy to lose one's self in the experience.

It's a relatively minor gripe in an otherwise strong effort. Each of the seven different worlds is as creative as the last, and Boy Loves Girl is the ideal game to drop in on for short doses or extended sessions. It makes a pleasant change to play something so full of charm and originality.