Podgamer -- game reviews and features for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, except not rubbish

Feature

Cut The Rope & The Magic-er Equation

by Nathan Grayson (October 19th, 2010 at 12:16 pm)

It’s occurred to me that we’ve written nothing about current App Store God-Emperor Cut The Rope on this adorable, cooing baby slice of the Internet we’ve carved a bloody hole in the center of and called home.

(If any readers are affected by issues relating to Comrade Nathan’s quirky across-the-pond spelling conventions, contact Podgamer Trauma Support at the usual address – Ed)

And that’s a damn shame, because it’s an absolutely fantastic game. Also, we’re missing out on so much Google search traffic. Like, you don’t even know. Make no mistake, however; that’s not the reason I’m writing this article. On a totally unrelated note: Cut The Rope, Cut The Rope tips, Cut The Rope Justin Bieber, Cut The Rope XXX underage porn sluts.

So, what’s the deal with all this “magic” nonsense? Well, you might remember an incident starring our very own Comrade Fuhrer Stuart and some particularly peeved birds. See, Herr Stu saw a flock of people fawning over that flock of avian sensations, and he just didn’t get what all the fuss was about. So, of course, he went to developer Rovio for a precise, scientific answer. “Magic,” they replied. Er, right.

However, after kneeling before the alter of the tiny god that is Cut The Rope and offering a rather generous sacrifice of my time and social life, I think I’ve found the answer. Cut The Rope, as it turns out, is Angry Birds’ formula perfected. It’s an Angry Birds clone not in form, but in philosophy. But what is that formula? Why can normal, semi-rational human beings derive all of their happiness from helping a tiny green monster gorge himself on candy? Well, in explaining why Cut The Rope is worlds better than Angry Birds’ cluttered, bird feces-ridden mess, I’m going to lay it all out for you.

COMPARE-O-VISION, ENGAGE!

1. Touching for the very first time

At the heart of both Angry Birds and Cut The Rope are simple, easy-to-execute motions. Put simply, flinging birds and cutting ropes feels good. In both cases, your fingertips function as arbiters of instant and tangible destruction. The reaction, though, is what really counts here. When your finger goes careening right through a rope, the rope drops and rocks back and forth – *drumroll and 43 minute guitar solo* like a rope. Similarly, launching an all-too-willing bird into a haphazard fortress somehow constructed by armless pigs is immediately rewarded with a dominoes-like chain reaction.

In both cases, physics rule the day, and the combination of instant yet utterly gratifying reactions and simple yet masterfully constructed touch screen controls sharpen the core gameplay into a nice, shiny hook that – once you take your first bite – never lets go.

Here, though, Cut The Rope takes the lead by, you know, actually making sense. Angry Birds asks for precision, yet provides neither the visual cues nor the handy on-screen widgets needed to achieve it. The result? “AAAARGH, WHY GAME NO WORK? ME THROW IPHONE AT BIRDS, SEE HOW BIRDS LIKE IT.” Cut The Rope’s central conceit – ropes – creates a much more constrained environment, and by virtue of that, one that affords you far greater control in each puzzle. The bottom line? No firing blind and praying that, this time around, the god of launching-birds-out-of-slingshots – whose oddly specific church has finally attracted a small following now that Angry Birds exists – smiles upon you. If you can see the solution, you can execute it.

2. Grace in defeat

Want to know what makes Cut The Rope so much fun? Losing. Over and over and over. Same with Angry Birds, only add about 40 more “overs.” Thing is, it’s actually brilliant, because you’re supposed to lose – at least, on Cut The Rope’s tougher puzzles. It’s a learning experience. And that’s the crucial difference between Cut The Rope/Angry Birds and all 23 trillion other puzzle-type electronic brain games: failure isn’t a chore. Each challenge is nice and short, so getting right back to where you were before the candy fell into the box’s infinite abyss and Green Monstermajig moved you to tears with his Glare Of Ten Thousand Puppies is no big deal.

Put simply, it’s an incredibly low stakes situation. As a result, there’s plenty of room for experimentation. Compared to other puzzle games, then, which might see you sit down, stare motionlessly at the screen, and attempt to think a tough puzzle into submission, in Cut The Rope thinking and action are one in the same. Your best bet, in fact, is to keep hacking away at ropes until you’re suddenly and brutally punched in the brain by an “Ah-hah!” moment. It’s compulsive precisely because there’s never a time when you’re not doing something. Better still, odds are, the end result is that you’ll move forward. If you’ve ever harbored illusions that you’re smarter than a racehorse, stow them, because you’ve been gleefully galloping along behind a carrot on a stick this whole time.

3. Arc Of The Covenant

After ascending to the highest peaks of rope-cutting, candy-flinging mastery, it’s really weird to watch someone who’s yet to master the subtle art have a go at it. Puzzles that you can do while driving, sleeping, and giving lectures on post-modern transcendentalism tie your young Padawan’s brain in knots, and it’s only then that you realize how far you’ve come. Cut The Rope’s difficulty arc is a thing of near-perfection, slowly but surely teaching you to think in what’s essentially another language right up to the point of fluency. And boy howdy is it ever rewarding. With each incrementally more challenging puzzle you solve, you feel like more and more of an intellectual badass. You aren’t, of course. That’s a title you can only earn by curing cancer or being Sherlock Holmes, but that’s not the point.

This is an area where Angry Birds also attempts to thrive, but its reward system often proves too nebulous to create quite the same effect of “I AM BRAINZILLA, HEAR ME ROAR.” Sure, you’ll feel pretty good about yourself when you bring down a veritable Pig Fortress Of Solitude in only two birds, but then the game proceeds to send your ego crashing down around you when it only awards you with one star. Why? Dunno. Try again maybe? There needs to be a book about this or something.

4. D’AAAAAAAAAW

Here at Podgamer, we pride ourselves on being men. Men who are capable of growing beards. On command. To win ZZ Top lookalike contests. So believe us when we say it takes quite the show of cuteness to shatter the ice around our cold, unfeeling hearts.

Both Cut The Rope and Angry Birds, however, managed to make me crack a grin and emit a bit of swoon. In private, mind you. I keep a secluded cabin in the mountains for these exact occasions. So no one knows. Except you. But that won’t be a problem for too much longer.

Judge this