Moon Child
from Clickgamer and Klaar

Unbelievable graphics and unique game play features!

“In another time, in another place, a green elf is sent by the moon to protect the planet Utopia. They call him Moon Child. Danger threatens. One night...

Old School platform gaming finally arrives at the Pocket PC. Are you capable enough to guide our hero through 13 levels and 4 worlds of gaming fun?

Features:

• 13 huge levels
• 4 worlds
• Psychedelic finale level.
• Unique elast-o-motion enabling good playability using the stylus
• Super crisp graphics (realtime 640*480 to 320*240 interpolated scaling)
• Rendering switches to allow smooth gameplay for slow devices
• Redefinable keyboard layout
• Stomping techno track (made with Syntrax, the mobile studio for your PocketPC)”

I have to admit I have never played Moon Child on the PC, but this is a complete port for the Pocket PC devices. It’s a platform game that brings back memories of all of the other platform games from the past!

The game play is unique. This is a landscape game (turn your device sideways) and use the D-Pad to move the character. However, they have also built-in another way to move. If you use your right thumb (or a stylus), you can tap the screen to make the character move and jump. The graphics are out of this world! I’ve never seen such crisp clean graphics and smooth play on a Pocket PC platform game.

The object of the game is this, collect 77 of the dark diamonds and find the way out. Each level is increasingly more difficult. The game consists of 4 different worlds for a total of 13 levels (4 in each plus the final level). The level selection screen is like a jigsaw puzzle. Each world is split into four pieces. Click the upper left square to start level one. The next level with flash after completing the first level. A number will appear in that puzzle piece showing the number of dark diamonds you have found. There are seven in each level. You will need to flip levers to open doors in order to make you way through each of the levels. There is no real need to start with level one. You can click in any of the twelve levels to play.

The controls are customizable. There does not seem to be a volume control inside the game, so make sure you turn the volume down to halfway before starting the game. You can however mute the music during the game. Of your four buttons, you can customize each one for the different features: control the lever button, options menu and the escape key. In the options menu, you can also change some of the detail features to make the game play faster or slower for your device. By turning some of the switches, you can turn off the interpolated graphics, interlacing and frame skipping. Some of the slower X-Scale devices may need this!

The game was designed for everyone from 7 to 77. There are no guns to destroy enemies. The special features you will find during the game are warp pads, jump pads, control switches to open doors and even a jet pack! There are plenty of things to avoid, such as snakes, birds, other miscellaneous obstacles. This a rather addicting game with optical illusions throughout! For example, you are moving along one platform and come to the end, when you turn around, you are one level higher. You might find an area where you jump over and over, but you’ve never gone anywhere. Keep on your toes and watch where you’re going. I do recommend you play the game in an area where you can see the details of the screen. Some of the enemies (such as the snakes) are rather tough to see.

The programmers made sure this game would work for most devices. It plays pretty good on my Samsung i700 even running at 200 MHZ. I did have to turn off some of the graphic intensive features, but it plays nicely. My kids have been playing the game for the past week and both are enjoying it very much. This is not a game you will complete in a single afternoon. You will need determination to work your way through all of the levels.

All in all, this is a very enjoyable game for everyone. If you like platform games, you will definitely like Moon Child. Once you get used to the controls, you’re off to collect those diamonds. This is one of the best platform games I’ve ever seen for the Pocket PC. Mario has nothing on Moon Child!

The game is huge. Make sure you have a storage card with at least 11MB of space for the game. You will also need about 5MB of RAM to play the game. The game is available for only $14.95. You can download a trial version that includes the first full level of the game or purchase the full version online.

This game was extensively tested by my family. The trip to Florida would have been rather boring without this game. Moon Child was tested on the Samsung i700 (200 MHZ running Pocket PC 2002 at the time), HP Jornada 568 (206MHZ ARM running 2002) and iPAQ 3955 (400MHZ running WM 2003). The game plays beautifully on all of the devices. I only encountered two problems playing the game. One was mapping one of the buttons on the Samsung. I had to map the escape button to the middle OK button. The mapping feature would not recognize the send button or the calendar button). The second problem was the auto shut off feature of my Samsung device. I have a password program that comes on after it powers off by itself. After entering my password, the graphics were messed up for the game. The two applications don’t seem to like each other.

Special thanks to Chris with Clickgamer and the friendly folks at Klaar for sending us a full version of the game to test and review.
Keep up the great work guys!