Cutting the cheese. Breaking wind. Passing gas. There are a million colourful expression that we use to describe flatulence, and there seem to be just as many games on the App Store that celebrate it. The latest is Bad Air Day, a simple survival game that’s in many ways a breath of fresh air.
Cutting the cheese. Breaking wind. Passing gas. There are a million colourful expression that we use to describe flatulence, and there seem to be just as many games on the App Store that celebrate it. The latest is Bad Air Day, a simple survival game that’s in many ways a breath of fresh air.
Bad Air Day tells the tale of Artie, a gassy gus who just happens to have the unlucky job of being an elevator operator. Toots and tight spaces don’t mix well, so players will need to push Artie’s farties up to the exhaust ports at the top of the elevator before any of his patrons catch a whiff of his scent. Offend three customers with the noxious fumes leaking from Artie and its game over.
Pushing the farts around is a fairly simple task, requiring only the swipe of a finger. Different passengers will have different heights and other quirks, which means you’ll need to steer the smell around each in a unique way. There’s the obvious difference of tall and short, but Bad Air Day keeps its silly vibe alive with a wide variety of passengers that possess different qualities. Take the gentleman with a sock puppet, for instance. He doesn’t seem bothered by the smell, but if a whiff goes past his puppet’s nose it may spell sudden doom for the player. Then there’s the robot whose head switches from top to bottom every few seconds, giving you a chance to sneak your farts past the top of his torso while his nose is hanging out by the bottom.
Silliness permeates every inch of Bad Air Day, with all of it depicted in a lovely art style that’s absolutely brimming with personality.
Still – while it’s a cute premise and the varying passengers help to keep things fresh, Bad Air Day is largely a one trick pony. Once you get to know foibles and eccentricities of each passenger, steering the bad gas around the compartment is a piece of cake. Things only come to a dead end once the elevator is littered with passengers, and by the time you’ve gotten that far you’ll likely find little reason to return.
Bad Air Day is a fun little game, but there’s just doesn’t offer enough of a challenge to keep you coming back for more. High score games really need a twist that gets their hooks in you, but despite all of its charm and simple fun, our desire to come back simply wasn’t there. It’s cute, it’s fun, and it’s probably worth the download – just don’t expect anything this to become the next must play game in your collection.
