Baa! Run Review

On the Lam(b)

Up-and-coming indie developers Blue Shadow Games embrace the wackiness of a vintage Warner Bros. cartoon for Baa! Run (out now, $0.99), a very different and altogether more light-hearted follow-up to their gritty debut Death Cop: Mechanical Unit. And if you’re a fan of pick-up-and-play intuitive gameplay, kooky artwork and highscore challenges, ewe’ll absolutely love it!

Aimed at a younger audience than your average endless running/survival game, rather refreshingly, Baa! Run sidesteps the genre’s increasing relience on gimmicky gameplay and instead opts for the killer combination of an amusing premise and simple one-touch control scheme.

The fun begins with a humorous intro that segues smoothly into the frantically paced action: a sheep grazes peacefully atop a sunny hillock, until a slobbering, knife and fork weilding wolf crashes this idylic scene. Little sheepy makes a break for it, and the hungry predator gives chase.

It probably goes without saying that your mission in this addictive timewaster is to try and stay one step ahead the big bad wolf and avoid being turned into lamb chops for as long as possible. As our woolly protagonist automatically trots from left to right through a vibrant, cartoony world, what you’ve got to do is tap the screen to leap over fences and munch as many daisies as you can. The longer you last, the more fast-paced the gameplay becomes, with those pesky fences getting closer and closer together!

All in all, Baa! Run has wonderful potential, but the ‘beat your best score’ routine does run out of puff quite quickly, and unlockable levels/environments and additional game modes would help expand the game’s life span no end. Still for $0.99, this charming title offers up a decent amount of sheep thrills (get it?) and comes highly recommended for younger gamers.

iFanzine Verdict: Energetic and a lot of fun, but there’s no escaping the fact that Baa! Run is a little light on content. That being said, if Blue Shadow continue to support the game by way of updates, this well made and absolutely gorgeous highscore-a-thon has runaway hit written all over it!

[xrr rating=3.5/5]