Ihooy is available on the App Store now to download for £0.59p and offers a game of Zombie smashing fun from an independent studio, delivering a gutsy, unique game of challenging timing and coordination based levels.

The concept of the game is very simple, wrapped up inside a bizarre explosive-zombie storyline.  There are 4 channels/corridors, the outer 2 harbour zombies that explode (bombiez) and the inner 2 carry uninfected civilians you need to let into the base.  Playing through each of the levels you will need to crush the zombies in the outer 2 corridors by hitting the red button below and slide open the entrance to the base in the inner 2.  This leads to a bizarre game play combination that fuses the coordination, timing and concentration of games like Guitar Hero with the zombie, bloody mayhem of Dead Rising.  Each of the 4 channels start sending Bombiez and civilians at you, and I'm sure you quickly get the idea of how it works. Failing to crush a zombie means it will explode against the wall defending your camp.  Let too many Bombiez through and your wall will be destroyed and it's game over.  Similarly, if you fail to open the entrance to the camp for the civilian to enter, they'll kill themselves on spikes placed just behind it.

There is a story but its pretty inconsequential to the game play and the app wouldn't suffer too much from a simpler, more straight forward approach to why you're crushing stuff in corridors.  Ihooy is an old army veteran drafted in to defend camps of unifected survivors and you'll play through levels across a mini-world that encompasses icy, green, desert and volcanic themed stages.  As you progress through the game the story unfolds via images in a comic book style.

ihooy is not a quickly mastered game.  With a combination of genuinely challenging levels that see you needing to survive a number of Bombie waves, save a certain amount of uninfected, destroy a certain amount of Bombiez or a combination each, the game gets hard, quickly.  Four or five levels into the game it gets genuinely hard to play and, in all honesty, is probably a little too hard for casual gamers looking for some fun.  Fairly precise timing is required, and the length and intensity of some of the levels (even fairly early on in the game) mean that it's quite hard work to play, and may end up putting less-dedicated gamers off.  In a level that may last 3 or 4 minutes and send 150 Bombiez at you, your wall will be destroyed by 2-4 bombiez depending on their size.  This is fairly tough and leads to pretty unforgiving game play.

iHooy is by no means a game suitable for children.  It contains swearing, blood and gore and other mild “scenes of an adult nature” which I don't expect would be offensive to adult gamers but certainly wouldn't be suitable for children.  It is in fact a bit of a miracle that it's made it through Apple's checks and onto the App Store. 

Developed by an independent game development company in Poland, I think it's fantastic to see an independent, small team getting coverage.  It's a testament to the iphone as a gaming platform that these small independent studios are releasing games and challenging the bigger established studios.  Coming from a small independent team however does mean it lacks the polish you'd expect from, for example, an EA game.  There are examples of broken English and slight mis-translations, the artwork is quite nicely hand-drawn but lacks the shine and quality to be found in other titles.  The music is good and dramatic but lacks variety and could get a little repetitive after a while. 

The game play and game concept is solid though and there are a lot of positives.  The gore effects are nicely done and build up over the course of a stage, it's artistic style is refreshing and there are potentially hours of game play.  It's hard to master but the game play is enjoyable and fun and overall is a pretty unique addition to the iphone/ipod touche's game library.

The game could be improved and extended fairly easily, which would make it more accessible and broaden it's appeal.  If a facility to repair walls were included, potentially by letting in supplies to the base, this would add an extra dimension to the game as well as make the harder levels more manageable.  Likewise some kind of crusher or opening upgrade would help the game, potentially making room for a manually operated turret defence style game.

iHooy is an enjoyable, addictive game to play that fuses timing, coordination style game play with a unique, fresh art style.  With a little polish and the levels made just a little simpler, this game could fairly easily rise to 7/10.  Adding in a few extra features like being able to repair your walls and it would be staring down the barrel of an 8/10.  It's hard to recommend this game to casual gamers looking for an easy-to-play game to progress through and complete leisurely.  It's a tough game and if you're looking for a challenging game that requires your full attention, practice and coordination it's for you.

Big congratulations to the guys at Braineaters studio, they've created a game on the App Store they can be proud of and which stands tall shoulder-to-shoulder with big studios.  Keep it up and we hope to continue seeing growth in the number of games from small independent studios making their way onto the app store.

6/10