In an age when casual mobile games are taking over the market, especially considering that Angry Birds has had over a billion sales, it seems a little odd that anyone outside of the casual zone would take notice and actually not hate on a mobile game. Like the games it gets its characters from, Bad Piggies is not a bad game. In fact it is a good game.
I'm someone who does like to play games that require quite a lot of time spent in to them. In fact, I have downloaded a few RPGs onto my phone, as I prefer them to the more casual experiences. Now Bad Piggies is a sort of mix between the casual and the core, at least for an touch screen game. There's quite a bit more thinking involved than you would find in Angry Birds, but it still has the same openness that it's predecessor had. No, it does not offer the same level of gameplay you'll find on consoles or in the handheld market, but as a game developed with a touch screen device in mind it is pretty brilliant.
The game uses the pigs from Angry Birds, but from their point of view. They're trying to get to the bird eggs. This is just a simple story, and serves nothing but the premise as to what you're doing. The premise being your contraptions. The idea is to create a contraption of sorts that will traverse your pig to the goal. As simple as that sounds, it can get pretty challenging at times when you factor in the different number of items you have, as well as physics.
At heart it is a puzzle game, so making it open-ended made it have many chances to go wrong. The great news is, the construction is handled very very well. While beginner levels offer you very few parts to use, and more or less require you to roll down a hill, as you progress levels become much more open-ended and allow you to make up your own solutions. As parts are added, they allow you to change the way the vehicles react during play. A fan for example push you, while an umbrella will slow your descent. And lets not forget TNT, which can send you flying.
Like in Angry Birds, the physics are handled by Box2D, so they are very well done and act (mostly) as you expect them to. Balancing your contraption so that it doesn't fall over, has enough space for the power and light enough so you can climb hills does involve a little trial and error, as well as hilarious results.
The art stylehas not changed at all since Angry Birds; the bright and colourful world is still the same. The pigs however are as full of emotion and expression. The faster they go and closer to breaking they get, the different the expression gets. It's much nicer to get feedback from your character, as well as being somewhat amusing at times.
There are currently three modes, with a fourth soon to be added. At the start, you are only given two modes: Ground Hog Day, and When Pigs Fly. It's pretty obvious what you would expect from these, but if you're unsure Ground Hog Day deals with vehicles and land, while When Pigs Fly deals with air vehicles. The third mode is Sand-Box. If you've heard this from other games, it follows a similar idea: a lot of things can be done forever. Bad Piggies does theirs within the constraints of it's established gameplay: a large map with a much larger construction area and many many stars to collect.
Speaking of stars, they are, like Angry Birds, your goal. Each level has three stars to collect, and can be obtained for a series of different method. One of them is always by finishing the level, the others are determined by the level itself. Some are timed, others require you to find and hit star boxes while others require you not to break your creation. Stars then unlock challenge levels, which as you can probably guess, are a lot harder than normal levels.
Summary
Rovio have outdone themselves here. While many will see this as a quick cash in, there is actually a lot of depth and a lot more to do than their efforts in Angry Birds. So, if you have an Android phone or an iPhone I do suggest you pick this up. For £0.69/$0.99 you can't really go wrong.
