My favorite mobile games are those that pull me in so quickly that a week passes by before I notice I'm spending every idle moment with my iPad gripped in my hands playing the damn thing. Games like Draw Something and Scramble With Friends have been my mobile game drugs for the past few weeks.
But then there are games that pull me in for their music. Or their art. These are games I can appreciate on a level that I typically reserve for larger game platforms. Every once in awhile, I won't play a game for its gameplay necessarily. I'll play it to relive an inspired environment.
That's exactly why I play Star Sloth. The game itself isn't a hard concept to grasp. You slide your fingers in the direction where you want to hit moving objects. What makes that mechanic great is that you're actually a cute, lazy, sleepy sloth riding on a rocket in space. And the moving objects you're shooting at are floating astronauts, or destructive objects like explosive and electrocuting mines. Oh, and the thing you're shooting out is a cheeseburger (or a veggie burger if you're into that kinda thing).
Along the way you might be confronted by your "#1 fan" who is basically your cheeseburger delivery route groupie. She bugs you with questions unless you shoot cheeseburgers at her spaceship. You might also encounter a burger burglar who will abduct cheeseburgers if you're not careful.
The game is, as you can probably tell, silly. I love silly. But while I'm giggling at the fact that I'm a sloth that's snoozing on a rocket, I'm also bobbing my head to the retro-inspired 8bit mixes and soothed by the purples and reds of the space clouds glittered with stars. As you rack up points you can buy new galaxies where you'll fly through cupcakes and cookies or explore the nuclei universe. Or you can choose to spend those points on a watch or, hell, some brass knuckles for your sloth protagonist.
Like I said, pretty silly.
Star Sloth [$1.99, iTunes]