In the continuation of my ongoing series of games I would like to see on the iPhone, I offer you Dolphin Olympics 2 from Alan Rawkins.
I first discovered this game when I was teaching high school students how to create games in Macromedia Flash (that’s right, before the Adobe buyout). Actually, my students discovered it…as they did many, many other online games. It was a serious challenge keeping them working and not playing.
Dolphin Olympics 2 (or Dolphin Olympics) is a classic example of a game that is a near perfect fit for the iPhone platform. The game play relies on simple, repeatable user interaction – flips, twists, and acceleration. Moreover, the landscape layout ability of the iPhone lends itself nicely to the side-scroller swimming the dolphin can do and tailslides, of course.
The challenge I see is the fact that the user has three interactions to control and only two hands to control them with. Flipping and twisting can easily be handled with a right and left button, but what about acceleration? I think I would make the iPhone dolphin be in a constant acceleration mode thereby eliminating the need for that user interaction. As long as the player keeps landing the jumps and incorporating flips and twists, the dolphin keeps accelerating. To be honest, I don’t think I ever take my finger off the accelerator when I’m playing Dolphin Olympics.
