Need a new iOS app to sponge up all your free time? Look no further: Kickin Momma is here to help.
Featuring the Swarmites from Hothead Games’ Swarm, Kickin Momma has a very weird premise: momma wants jewels, and it’s up to her babies to get them for her. How? Well, she kicks them and they bounce around, collecting jewels. Yeah, I’m not sure how that works, either. But it doesn’t really matter. Kickin Momma is sort of like Angry Birds crossed with pachinko, which explains why it’s so addictive.
Each level consists of a bunch of blue pegs, 10 red jewels, and sometimes a few other special pegs. Momma stands on the left side of screen, with a swarmite standing at her feet, ready to be kicked. You position her aim by dragging the line with your finger, and then hit the Kick button, sending the baby flying. When you hit pegs, they light up and you get points, and jewels get knocked out of their static positions and fall down, bouncing on pegs (and occasionally getting stuck). Once your baby makes it all the way to the bottom, it vanishes, and any pegs that were hit on the way down vanish as well, clearing the path for more babies.
Each level has a minimum number of jewels you must collect to pass, and you also get bronze, silver, or gold medals depending on your score. Hitting a lot of pegs with one kick gets you multipliers, as well as the green pegs. You also get points for long shots (hitting a peg far from the last bounce), hitting a jewel that’s been knocked loose, and various other things. As you progress through the levels you’ll also encounter stone pegs that need to be hit twice, or ice pegs that can only be broken when you’re on fire. There are bombs that blow up after a short countdown, and some that blow up immediately.
So far there are just three worlds, twelve levels each, but if you’re the sort that loves to collect all the achievements and medals, then it’ll keep you busy for a while. There’s plenty of humor in the game, from the animation of momma to the names of achievements to the “Wicked Super High Score” that you may get if you’re lucky. Of course, it’s wildly inappropriate and my wife has overheard my kids asking things like “why does the momma kick the babies?” But it’s quite fun.
It can be a little frustrating at times not knowing all the details of the scoring — I know you get multipliers, which gets you more babies to kick, which gets you a better score … but I’m a little fuzzy on on the specifics and I didn’t see any instructions other than the simple tips that pop up the first time you play through the game.
Kickin Momma is $1.99 for iPhone version or $3.99 for the HD universal version — not the cheapest app, but if they keep adding new worlds it’ll keep you kicking swarmite babies for a long time.
Wired: Physics-based game with lots of wacky achievements to earn.
Tired: Sometimes unpredictable controls, and not much explanation of scoring.
Disclosure: GeekDad received a free download for review purposes.
