In this post I’ll be reviewing a game called Flippy Knife. A game that shows a lot of similarities to the popular Flippy Knife game developed by Oleg Beresnev, but this one was developed Fei Shao. The game has two modes: Normal and AR, but like in other AR games where the AR is a mode in the game, I give more weight how the game plays in the AR mode.
What is Flippy Knife AR?
Flip Knife AR, although AR is mentioned in its title, has two modes, a Normal mode, and an AR mode. The non-AR mode plays the same as the AR, but with 2D cartoon style visuals. The AR mode is more simplistic, has a wooden board and the knife object.
Flippy Knife AR is a physics-based on-finger control augmented reality game. The idea is so simple that it will amaze you. All you need to do is to flip the knife using swipe gesture and make it land on the sharp side of the knife so it will stick on the wooden board. The longer the swipe, the higher the flip and the number of flips. You get points for the total number of flips and when the knife is stuck in the wood. If it doesn’t stick, you don’t get any points. You also get bonus points for doing combis, which means being able to consequently make it stick one time after the other.
You can coins if you nailed it right and you can use these coins to buy different types of knives, each one with its own unique physics. For example, I started with a regular commando knife and bought a butcher’s knife for 100 coins. The butcher knife needs to land on the tip of the knife, like a real butcher knife, because its end is not sharp, it’s flat.
The game also allows you to get more coins by watching full-screen advertisements which you need to watchfully to redeem the coins. I think you can do it indefinitely. I just did it two times and got 30 coins for each watched ad.
Very Addictive Gameplay
When I first start playing this game, I said: “what the heck is this game?!”. A minute later I was flipping that knife like crazy, not even stopping for a second. This game is seriously addictive, I mean seriously. I mean, how many times you can just use swipe motion to flip a knife? It supposes to be the most boring game on Earth, right? Well, exactly the opposite. It is very addictive and it just keeps you doing the same movement pattern again and again. You want the knife stick on the wood and when it does it feels nice. You want to nail those combos because it feels great seeing the knife flying into the air and pierce the wooden plate every single time one time after the other.
Knowing that there are other 5 knives to unlock you want you to succeed and get more money to unlock them all. Each one of these knives look more badass than the other and you want to get them all!
Just in comparison, the original Flippy Knife title comes with over 35 world famous blades, much more than what this version of this game offers. Kind of make you wonder why Oleg Beresnev didn’t develop its own ARKit version of the game, or did he?
The game is surprisingly fun. I could just flip those knives for an hour without stopping, seriously.
AR Experience
Nothing exciting to talk about, unfortunately. It’s just s board and a knife that you flip on it. I actually preferred the non-AR version because of the vibrant visuals and the different themes. It was definitely more interesting to watch than the boring living room I was playing at. If I plan to spend a chunk of time on this game, at least I want to enjoy some nice graphics while doing so, don’t you think?
In my opinion, it would be more cool with high-res textures and more realistic appearance, but it looks fine this way as well. very nice with the cartoon art-style as well. There are also made other modes or achievements that could have spice the game up. I can see myself playing it while waiting in line for something, but there isn’t anything special that will keep me come back to put more time in it. I still want to invest more time in this game, but after I play maybe a few hours more during the week, I’ll probably get bored with it and move on to play a more immersive ARKit game.
Conclusion
Flippy Knife is a very addictive AR game. Now that it’s on my iPad, I know that I will play it again. It’s The casual game to play where you need to pass some time and when you have nothing else to do. I won’t be playing it regularly. It will be my kill-time game when I wait in the queue in the bank, when on the bus, etc.
It’s far from being an exciting Augmented Reality game. It’s like a boring version of the Normal mode. There is no use of depth, motion or anything else to make the game attractive in AR. It’s yet another iOS game with an AR mode that didn’t convince me to play it in Augmented Reality. It’s just a very flat an uninspiring version of the more vibrant-looking and visually appealing Normal version.
Having said that, still, the game is very fun and addictive even in AR. The thing is that I’ll probably won’t be playing it in AR. If I am on the bus or waiting in line in the bunk, I will play the Normal mode. I don’t intend to search for a surface to play it.
There are some games that are ingeniously simple and immensely fun and addictive to play, AR Flip Knife (Flippy Knife AR, Fippy Knife AR) is definitely one of them, but the AR mode didn’t do it for me.
The game is free on the App Store: AR Flip Knife by Fei Shao: link to the game on the AppStore.