So, the other day the Princess was stolen by an evil monster and it was my job to traverse various lands and retrieve her. No, I wasn’t a portly little plumber. I was Lipa, a young knight in a children’s game made to encourage problem solving.
Lipa Knight Valentine’s (out now, $0.99) was designed by Lipa Learning to exercise young kids’ minds with science, spatial reasoning, and creative building. You goal as the titular knight is to get from point A to point B by filling in gaps with blocks acting as bridges. Once a bridge has been created, your hero journeys across to the other side and you start over with a new gap and new pieces.
The controls are pretty straight-forward for this type of thing: you touch a block and drag it to where you think it should go, and the game’s physics do the rest. You have no direct control over Lipa, but that’s okay. It’s not a platformer as its side-scrolliness might suggest. It’s essentially a simple puzzle game.
In fact, that’s the only criticism I can think of leveling against the game. It’s a bit too simple, to the point where there is almost no variation in the puzzles or their solutions. At the same time, there is certainly something to be said for keeping such a simple concept laser-focused. It’s a kids game, afterall, and I fully recognize I’m not the intended audience. (With that in mind, I showed my 21 month old son the game. He pointed to Lipa’s horse and said “neigh!” That’s a pretty solid endorsement, actually.)
iFanzine Verdict: Lipa Learning’s Lipa Knight Valentine’s is a nice little game. It’s colorfully cartoonish and should provide a friendly challenge for youngsters. You could probably plow through the game’s 20 levels in about 12 minutes yourself, but it’s not really for you, is it? It would be nice if there was slightly more variation in the puzzles and a few more levels, but what’s there is probably good enough to keep your kids entertained for the price.