Tadpole Tap
by: Outerminds Inc.
Arcade
Tadpole Tap by Outerminds Inc. is an Arcade Infinite Jumper where you use your tongue to grab on trees and escape from piranhas trying to eat you. There are lots of power ups to get and flies to eat in this Pixel Art toad larva adventure.
Review
Gameplay 80%
Tadpole Tap is an Infinite Jumper where you take control of a tadpole that got attacked by piranhas in its pond, and it’s escaping by grabbing tree branches with its tongue and going as high up as possible, while eating flies, bettles, colored energy balls and other bugs in the way.
To use your tongue, you just tap anywhere on the screen and you’ll see it come out to eat flies or grab onto tree branches. If there are only leaves, once you stand on them they’ll fall down and you’ll need to quickly grab on to something else. If you grab onto a flower, once you get them it will open up and you can sit there without worryng about falling down. Keep in mind that your pond is getting rain water and its level is rising, and you’ll be in trouble once the piranhas reach you.
Flies are like the game’s currency, that you can use to buy characters, lives and power ups, or make your tongue longer. Special Items you can eat include a ‘2X Multiplier’ that makes a fly value double up, a invincibility rainbow ball that makes you invulnerable for a short while, a bettle that makes bugs appear on every branch you land, a magnet that attracts all flies to you, and a folliage item that makes a flower appear in every branch.
Besides the piranhas, you have to worry about electric energy balls scattered through the levels, and spiked pineapple pines, that when you land on them, you are stucked, and you can get out of there grabbing another branch, but it’ll take a few seconds, and the fish trying to eat you below may reach you before that.
The overall objective is just to go up collecting flies, and break your record in every playthrough.
Graphics 80%
Tadpole Tap features 16-Bit pixel art graphics, and you’ll see mostly green blue-ish colors. The animals you see have little animation, but there are somenice details like the leaves falling down when you land on them, and the multicolored energy balls have a nice lighting effect, and you get to see the classic “X-Ray” esqueleton effect when you touch them.
At the sides you’re always looking at trees, and as you go uo soon you’ll only see a light blue sky with a few clouds as background. It’s simple, but it works for this game. Also, every 30 meters or so, it’ll start raining. The water pouring down looks nice, and there’s also a darkened screen effect, but it’s not something amazing.
Overall the visual quality of the game is like the standard of pixel art titles, nothing to complain about, but just not that good to be really memorable, it just fits the game.
Production Quality 70%
Tadpole Tap offers just the kind of experience you’d expect from an Arcade Endless Jumper nowadays. It has simple touch controls, gets challenging as you go up, and there are many things to unlock, but there’s nothing that makes it stand out from other similar games. Sure, you may not have played a game starring a toad’s larva, but that’s not really a reason to stick around playing it for more than a few minutes.
Games of this genre have extra challenges or achivements to make every play more interesting, but here your only motivation is to break your previous record, and after getting to 100 meters, you may decide that’s enough and look to play something else.
There are many characters to unlock, but they’re not very different from each other, and there’s only a little animation on them, so it’s not really worth the time to get the 1,000 flies to buy one.
Value for your Money 60%
Tadpole Tap is free on Google Play and the App Store, but there are in-app transactions and ads. When you lose, you can watch a video ad to continue, and there’s a banner advertisement always showing in the menu screen. You can also watch ads to earn flies, but if you want to buy a 10,000 flies character, it’ll take way too many videos for that.Launch Video
Summary
Tadpole Tap is a good option for casual gamers looking for a simple arcade title. If you enjoy infinite jumpers with pixel art, check it out, just keep in mind that is not great, and it’s meant just to keep you busy for a few minutes, by the time you get to 100 meters, you may leave it at that. Pros- Nice 16-Bit Pixel Art Graphics
- Simple touch gameplay with many power ups to get
- The enviroment changes a lot as you go up, with many challenges appearing to keep you busy
- Buying extra characters is way to expensive
- No achivements or extra challenges, just an endless level
