Arrows and Sparrows (2017): Mobile Game Review

Forget birds against pigs,  Bit Craft Studios’ Arrows and Sparrows is all about saving Goldie the Goldfish from menacing birds ready to have him for lunch. Are you ready to gear up your crossbow and protect him?

https://youtu.be/JP2lCbkLnsI

Arrows and Sparrows is an action-packed cartoon style mobile game. It uses the slingshot mechanism, in this case a crossbow, to arch and angle our shots to the menacing birds. Each bird shot down will gain feathers which can then be used to get power-ups for the arrows. There are three kinds of power-ups and they are: Trishot, Supershot and Bomb Shield. Rather self-explanatory but incredibly useful when there are a lot of birds on screen. It is also noteworthy that there are various types of birds. We only have five arrows to shoot down the red long-beaked birds. The other birds are just distractions and obstacles along with eggs and bombs. However, while the obstacles are are against us, if used properly, can prove to be advantageous in not only scoring more feathers (aka points) but also hitting two birds (or more) with one stone, no pun intended.

Right off the bat, this mobile game has energetic music to match with its colorful environment. The cartoon style looks very good.   Red birds are very iconic now with the well-known Angry Birds and it is hard to not compare the two as it is also “slingshot” type of deal, except this time, it is not knocking down blocks and buildings to kill pigs but rather shooting down actual birds, which require more specific aiming to actually save Goldie. There are various types of birds: Blue birds that carry eggs that hatch little birds; brown birds that fly in flocks; pink birds that carry bombs, all to create distractions and obstructions to your shot or destroy your crossbow.The objective is simple and yet the challenges are plenty. Sometimes, the judgement of applying the correct power up is the key. However, if you are starting with the free twenty levels, and don’t wish to spend money on it then on top of feathers accumulated in levels, there are feathers awarded for watching an ad or inviting friends. This mechanic makes us choose carefully how to use the power ups. While we don’t encourage this sort of in-app purchase concept, there is still a free game route which is a plus and a great way to see if you want to invest a little more for the entire game.

Arrows and Sparrows runs smoothly. It does have some mobile kinks, with the touch screen sometimes not being as responsive as it should be, but these are common problems that we’ve seen before in mobile games. The game looks good and the concept is sound. The music helps to make it fun and Goldie offers encouragement when we manage to save him. The levels themselves are challenging and require some logic and problem solving to decipher. In fact, it creates a fine line between challenge and skill. There’s something very enjoyable about Arrows and Sparrows and quite the rewarding feeling when we manage to pass a level. We recommend you give it a try.

Arrows and Sparrows was released on iOS and Android on January 25, 2017 with 20 free levels and unlock 60 additional levels via in-app purchases.