UNDODA AND THE MIND'S EYE

A game-centric app offering an abruptly chopped off story about a heroic chinchilla aviator who opens a mystical portal between Easter Island and…San Francisco.

On the “Storybook” track, young Undoda (pronounced "un-doo-da"), who has “a special gift to see the world in reverse,” befriends a rebel bird warrior named Amira. She flies him to the ruined city of Dow Nunder—inhabited only by talking animals, though presumably humans were there once—where he “reverse engineers” wrecked machinery into an aircraft. Back on Easter Island, Amira distracts a giant attacker while Undoda and his father unlock the secret of the Books of Was and Saw—joined together, they open a portal to Golden Gate (or “Gold Gate,” as it’s called earlier). The good guys escape through the portal and find that the past has changed—or, as Undoda opaquely puts it, “In the future, I was what I saw?!” Multiple typos muddy the text; these, combined with cramped and confusing screens, show that the designers’ focus was less on the story than on the trio of associated games in the “Free Play” option. Those comprise a matching game and two tilt-driven variations on pinball, all with an impressive nine levels of difficulty. Children can also opt for the “Adventure” mode, which is a hybrid with the games and story interleaved. The audio narration and New Age background music can be turned off separately.

Handsome packaging, but with such a silly plot and limited slate of games, it's far less than meets the eye.