sheliahuyes

sheliahuyes

For younger gamers the name Mordillo might mean nothing, but older folks will immediately recognise the unique style of the Argentinean cartoonist. Right where you find a Sudoku on a newspaper these days, there used to small entertainment jewels to make our everyday life easier. If you like Calvin & Hobbes and Dilbert strips, Mordillo became really popular over a decade ago for his "spot the difference" cartoons.

Mordillo find them [iTunes Link] by Murmex Labs aims to bring the same experience to the iPad with full colour illustrations and game mechanics that can be enjoyed by young, old and the whole family, just like in the old days. If you have already played with books like Where's Waldo? you'll be a natural for this. The aim of the game is to spot the differences between two pictures that are apparently the same: some objects might be missing, some colours could have been changed or maybe the size of some item is not exactly the same.

Simple gameplay might make Mordillo find them sound as easy as a children's game, but it is actually quite difficult. I remember being able to spot the differences much faster on the black and white newspaper. Doing the same thing with larger pictures, full colours and a time limit will test your skills and patience.

Given the amount of detail and the themes used, one of the goals is actually to remain concentrated in your task. Most of the artwork is crammed with witty characters and its quite easy to get lost smiling with every detail. To make things more difficult, every illustration has a time limit to be completed and and a set number of differences to be found. Making a false move, tapping somewhere in the picture where there's no difference, will reduce significantly the time bar. You are warned: think before tapping! Once you tap on one of the differences you are awarded with some extra seconds, so you might be able to complete a level just right at the end of the time limit.

Mordillo find them has implemented OpenFeint and Game Center as well as social network sharing tools. There is a multiplayer turn, which is basically a pass and play game mode, not a truly online multiplayer experience. The original game design for Mordillo's artwork has been respected and this iPad version won't disappoint fans of the genre. I don't know the amount of levels included, but I haven't seen the same one yet after playing for a week. Update - The game includes 40 different original artwork across 99 levels. The differences are set randomly to ensure you don't have to solve the same puzzle twice.

The game has already been a hit on the Italian App Store ranking over Angry Birds with a second and seventh position on the game and general categories respectively. The developer has told me that the app is coming to the iPhone and the iPod Touch in the near future for all the Mordillo fans who want to enjoy it with Retina Display on a smaller device.