The concept of Skipping Stone is so simple and so ridiculously childish that you'd think it wouldn't be a fun game at all--and you'd be completely wrong. If you've been charmed by WarioWare, or older cult classics like Bishi Bashi Special, you're in for an idiosyncratic treat here.
Skipping Stone captures those lazy summer afternoons spent skimming pebbles across twinkling waters. The first step during gameplay is to get the pitch right. The strength of the throw is governed by a power gauge that whizzes up and down, requiring deft timing to achieve a full-bodied lob. Next, just press the fire button every time the stone hits a sweet spot on the surface of the water--if you miss the spot, your power gauge drains and the bounce height reduces. When the gauge reaches zero, the pebble sinks, and it's game over. The longer you keep the stone skipping, the higher your score.
There are two very subtly different game modes: distance and splash. They're self-explanatory really--the former encouraging you to clock up the kilometers, the second counting your bounces. You can also amass combos by making consecutive sweet-spot hits, and this bumps up your scores a bit. An online high-score table would have been a nice addition here.
Although it sounds idiotically primitive, the straightforward design masks a playing experience of real depth and compulsion. Importantly, the balance is perfect--a topped-up power meter is great for longevity, but it means a longer drop between bounces, which makes it tricky to establish a rhythm. Conversely, when you're on your last sliver of power, the bounces are low and superfast, allowing the calm, collected gamer to tap away for ages, skimming along the edge of oblivion. In this way, however well you're doing, the game is always challenging, always testing your reflexes.
Then, of course, there are the power-ups and forfeits. If you hit the sweet spot a number of times in succession, a question-mark box appears onscreen. Get the spot again, and you'll access one of nine pickup icons. The sneakers, for example, increase dropping speed, the clock slows it down, the spring boosts your power gauge and gives you a higher jump, the weight decreases the height, and so on. These are the little alterations to the flow that keep you thinking.
Most useful, though, is the brilliant whale that swims onscreen and gives you a huge height boost by lifting you up on its water spurt, and the Superman symbol, which freezes your energy gauge for a short period. Challenging obstacles include the ingenious tornado forfeit, which triggers your phone's vibrate function for a couple of seconds--just enough to throw unwary skippers off their rhythm. It's a simple effect, but it's one of the most original implementations of rumble technology we've yet encountered.
The tempo also changes as the game switches between the seven different stages--and this can really mess your game up, especially if you're low on energy. If the speed shifts don't finish you, the increasingly eccentric backgrounds just might. You start off in a daytime ocean scene, followed by dusk, night, and dawn. Then things get a bit weird--a crazy fairy-tale area, an even crazier candy world, and finally, of course, outer space. At first boats and hot-air balloons drift by inconspicuously, but when you get to fairyland, the Far Eastern kookiness goes into overdrive, with businessmen in chicken suits floating past, followed later by giant gingerbread men and candy canes. It's an effervescent eruption of primary colors and throwaway kiddie cartoon styling--lovely, silly, joyous stuff.
While the graphics are great, Skipping Stone's sound rates as a slight disappointment on the Nokia 6600. There's a bizarre scratchy pop tune before the main menu and some cute digitized speech at the beginning of the game, but the bounce sound effect is a jarringly hard plink--it should be a nice soft splash. A few offbeat riffs between levels would have livened things up a bit too, although the sparse audio was probably a necessity to ensure a smooth visual experience, which is vital for such a rhythm-focused game.
An addictive, hyperkinetic high-score challenge based on throwing stones into the sea...whoever saw that coming? But we're glad it did. Skipping Stone's brash graphics and simple (yet seductive) gameplay make it a title of WarioWare-esque vivacity. Although anyone can pick it up and appreciate it, the game's exquisite balancing provides the depth to reward more experienced gamers. This is a game anyone with a phone can enjoy.
