Perhaps you’ll remember when we previously covered Adrian Rodriguez’s Kickstarter, which aimed to collect the $150 required to launch Squishy Finger Frenzy (out now, free) on the iTunes App Store. It probably goes without saying — based on the fact this article happens to be a review — but Adrian’s Kickstarter not only went well, his fast-paced game of object tapping has furthermore released upon the mobile marketplace. Far more noteworthy — however — is the fact that Squishy Finger Frenzy has additionally arrived with no upfront costs, no in-game advertisements, and absolutely no IAPs whatsoever.
When the game begins — after one of three different difficulties has been selected — you’ll find yourself staring at an endless field of falling objects, which are the titular Squishies upon which the game was named. Your goal is to destroy as many of these as possible — either by tapping them, or by holding the screen and dragging your finger through them — seeing as how each Squishy eradicated restores seconds to your rapidly dwindling timer. Although things will start out easily enough — with the Squishies coming in slowly at first — all too quickly the action will ramp up, after which you’ll need lightning fast reflexes if you want to keep the timer from running dry.
Finally — after your game has ended, assuming you weren’t playing on the lowest difficulty setting — you’ll even have a chance to submit your score to Squishy Finger Frenzy’s high score list. Although you can’t submit high scores when playing the game’s lowest difficulty setting — wherein you quickly squish kitty faces, that furthermore meow upon being defeated — you certainly can after losing to either of the two faster settings. Oddly enough — however — Squishy Finger Frenzy currently contains only a single online table for both the “Average Joe” and “Supernatural” speed-tiers, leaving you to wonder what exactly the point of attempting to master the game’s fastest difficulty-tier ever was.
There also exists a special “Backer” mode, wherein you can play through the game — otherwise unchanged in format — with the various Squishies replaced by falling pictures of the many generous people whom helped Adrian Rodriguez to release this on iTunes. While certainly a great idea — at least in theory — for honoring your generous Kickstarter backers, it’s not exactly all that interesting when there’s only two different squishable pictures available. Oh well, it’s not like this particular awkwardness was ever really Adrian Rodriguez’s fault — per se — seeing as how his Kickstarter, although successfully funded, only ever managed to attract a grand total of six supporters.
In the end Squishy Finger Frenzy is — as you’ve probably already surmised — an admittedly somewhat simplistic game, and yet — in light of the app’s 100% free price tag — can still serve as a decent time waster. Here’s hoping that Adrian considers updating Squishy Finger Frenzy with separate tables for all three of its difficulty tiers, rather than simply containing a single-aggregate high score list for the highest two speed-settings. This oversight really is the singular issue holding back any desire to become the best Squishy Squasher ever (since you can never know if you were bested by someone on an easier setting, or if your victory was sadly pyrrhic due to your besting a higher-tier score).
iFanzine Verdict: Squishy Finger Frenzy is an endless game of eradicating — either via taps or swipes — all the many shapes endlessly falling down, and serves as a simple enough time-waster thanks to the game’s absolutely free asking price. The high score list is currently somewhat disappointing — however — with all scores from the top two difficulties being aggregated together, without any mention of which tier was played. This renders it currently impossible for anyone to ascertain whether or not their relative placement on the high score list actually meant anything (since not everyone is playing at the same speed-tier), a dilemma that I hope is rectified in a future update.