After playing only three levels of Disney’s Where’s My Water? you realise that hours of your life will be lost swiping away at your touchscreen. It’s all about Swampy, a smiley alligator who lives in the sewers. All we know about him is that he is cute — and desperate for a shower.
The premise is simple: swipe the screen to dig tunnels that allow a pool of water to trickle down into his shower hose. It makes good use of what Apple calls physics-based technology — get the angle of your tunnel wrong and the water will not flow. Of course, things quickly become more complicated: algae can block your tunnels and toxic-looking purple water will poison poor Swampy.
You cannot help but like him. He wears armbands while swimming in the sewers and does an endearing jig in the shower when the water finally flows. He exudes charm without speaking a word, all the better for the international market. As you progress you learn more of his “story”, and you can see that Disney plans to make him a star.
The game is more Lemmings than Angry Birds, because you have to plan ahead. There are eight themed chapters and more than 160 levels. By level 12 the complexity is high enough to require a few attempts and some serious cognitive work.
The game play is simple and intuitive with hidden levels and shower items, such as Shiny Scale Shampoo, along the way, as well as the lure of new levels, featuring Cranky, the bad cop to Swampy’s good cop. Those levels cost another 69p, a price you imagine millions are willing to pay for another fix of “good clean fun”.
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Where’s my Water? costs 69p and is available on iOS, Android, iPhone and iPad.