That chaos emerald has gotta be around here somewhere.
My first thought when I saw Pangolin was that it looked pretty weird, and you know by now that I like weird. But I also mistook it for a platformer – which it definitely isn’t.
Like its animal namesake, Pangolin is a bit of a taxonomical oddity – its closest cousin on the App Store is 2D links game Super Stickman Golf, but it also owes a debt of inspiration to the bonus stages from the original Sonic the Hedgehog. By touching two fingers to the screen, you form a trampoline that bounces the titular critter through each level in search of the goal at the end – the farther apart you hold your fingers the further our armoured little friend goes.
It’s simple – but that simplicity lends it that compulsive “one more go” quality. It’s also downright beautiful: the pointillist art and the wind chimes-and-flutes soundtrack are evidence of production values as high as anything else on the App Store. It’s compelling enough that I forgot all about Hundreds this weekend. Highly recommended – check out the trailer below.
