Pictureka! Review

Pictureka! is one loud app. I mean loud. Loud in every sense of the word (hence the exclamation point in the title). It's easily the noisiest game I've ever played on the iPhone. There's a sound effect for every action that takes place on the screen, so buyer beware if you intend to play this game in public. You're sure to get some odd looks from those wondering where all of the springy, sprockety blips and twangs are coming from.

If you're at all familiar with the board game of the same name, you have a pretty good idea of what to expect from Pictureka! You're given a time limit to locate a pre-established number of particular objects from a scrollable screen of many, many items. Find them, and you move on to the next round or level. If you don't....you crash and burn. It's fun, simple and very basic, which may explain why the designers felt the need to pep up the proceedings with so many audio fireworks and quirky visuals. In the end, it seems unnecessary, as Pictureka! is a good, solid, though unoriginal find-an-object game.

Kids are sure to enjoy the game with all of its oddball sounds and strange characters, but adults may find the game more than a bit grating. Given that another find-an-object game such as Little Things has such a zen-like, calming effect during gameplay, it seems unlikely that many adults would gravitate to the more jarring sensory overload of Pictureka!

The game is identical on both the iPhone and the iPad, but there's a $3.00 difference in price between the two versions. This is a continuing insult to iPhone and iPad users, since the game could have easily been designed as a universal app. If there were significant differences in content I might understand a price difference, but this is just money grubbing, plain and simple. If this is a game you're interested in, I recommend just purchasing the $1.99 iPhone version since you get the same content. A bigger screen and HD visuals just aren't going to make a huge difference in a game like this.