Yesterday the Boston-based development studio Owlchemy Labs released Snuggle Truck, an “over-the-top physics-based driving game where you must save your cargo full of fuzzy animals from extinction by delivering them to the zoo in the least amount of time”. It’s a fun, cute tilt-based game that will have you smiling as you try desperately to catch falling fuzzies while sailing along a bumpy road, hoping not to lose your precious cargo.
What you may not know is that this title was the latest victim of Apple’s sensor police. Originally named Smuggle Truck, the game had you transporting illegal immigrants instead of fuzzy animals, and you were attempting to smuggle them across the border. The “objectionable” content was ingeniously replaced simply by swapping out the art assets and Snuggle Truck was born. Owlchemy’s Chief Scientist, Alex Schwartz, explains the changes in the video below.
I’ve had numerous opportunities to play the original version of the game, including earlier this year at the MassTLC PAX East “Made in MA” Party 2011, where I met Owlchemy Labs’
Chief Scientific Advisor Yilmaz Kiymaz. I’m happy to say that the gameplay was not effected in anyway by the changes. At that time I also got to experience the PC <-> iOS interaction, controlling the action on the screen of the PC version from an iPhone via the Brass Monkey API that was used to develop the game. You just need to have your PC and iDevice on the same WiFi network and you should be good to go, or just click on the monkey icon in the top corner of the PC/Mac release and you’ll be presented with instructions. When enabled, it will allow players to use an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad to control the Mac/PC version of the game.
If you want to experience this control scheme, or just want access to the original, unchanged version of the game, Smuggle Truck, then you can purchase the Mac/PC version of the game for $5 from SmuggleTruck.com. This release actually allows players to instantly switch between Snuggle and Smuggle modes of the game anytime they want, even mid-action.
The iOS release of Snuggle Truck is available in separate iPhone and iPad releases priced at $1.99 and $2.99 respectively. It contains over 40 levels of varying difficulty, many of which have their own Game Center leaderboards. The iPad version will sport a complete level editor in an forthcoming update, and in May there will be an update which adds the community-developed levels to both iOS releases of the game as well.
If you are looking for a little mindless fun, with beautiful graphics and a perhaps a small amount of strategy, then definitely check this one out.
