VG Five

EDIT -- There is also a LITE version of Chippy available to try before you buy. App Store Link

This edition of the App Feature is to spotlight a new iPhone game that I've been playing quite a bit of in the past week or so. Chippy (by Cramzy) is a recreation of the classic Bubble Trouble game (also known as Pang). The premise is simple: You are a chipmunk with a bow. The bow shoots arrows with ropes attached straight up in the air. Your targets are the colored balls that menacingly bounce up and down in their attempts to crush you under them.

If an arrow or the rope attached to it make contact with a ball, the ball will split into two smaller balls. Once the balls are blue, one more hit will erase them for good. The controls are simple, with only three major buttons: move left, move right, and shoot. A pause button fills up the top right corner, and the rest of the top bar tells your current lives, points, et. al.

Overall, Chippy is a fun and quick game that makes good use of the iPhone's limits while not resorting to quirky tilt controls (which are rarely implemented well in games like this). The controls are responsive, and there's a lot of mindless fun to be had.

Chippy is available now for $0.99 on the App Store.