Fatty (Android) Review

Picture this, if you will. An adorable little girl rides a large green amorphous blob through a picturesque countryside, scooping up delicious junk food as they bounce along their merry way. If this sounds like your idea of a good time, then have I got the game for you.

Fatty, the newest release from Coatsink Software, bounces its way into your heart with a game that is both simple and challenging at the same time. It works on a “beat your own score” mechanic, as you work to make it farther and father up the thermometer scale. The game plays out as I described above, but it’s much more than that. Fatty is the green blob that the girl rides, and it’s your job to make sure he gets all the junk food he can eat. As he eats, he grows larger and blobbier – and the chubbier he gets, the better you do in the game. In fact, you are measured by just that, with scores ranging from bloated to podgy to fatso.

Every hero needs a nemesis, and for Fatty – it’s vegetables. Broccoli, carrots – you name it, Fatty needs to avoid it. Eating a vegetable results in Fatty immediately becoming skin and bones (or loss of a multiplier, if you have one). If you don’t snag a cupcake or other junk food fast, it’s game over for Fatty, who quickly turns into a skeleton. There are also a few other obstacles to avoid, from glowing red skull n crossbones that can cause instant death, to an annoying little dude who likes to shoot at you. It is a game that quickly turns frantic, as you bounce higher and higher in search of more coins and junk, all the while trying desperately to avoid the deadly roughage.

The controls in Fatty are fairly simple to execute – once you figure them out. My biggest complaint with the game is that there really isn’t any tutorial to speak of. As you begin the game, you are shown a finger touching the screen, and players are left to figure the rest out on their own devices. Fatty has only one move – he bounces. But how high, when, and in which direction is up to you. Left on his own, Fatty will slow bounce up and down continuously, and eventually run into a deadly obstacle. It’s your job to direct traffic, so to speak.

You control Fatty by tapping and holding on the screen, depending on what you want him to do. If you tap and hold mid-bounce, Fatty will plummet to the ground quickly and bounce back up. Tap one time and it will start his descent, albeit more slowly. The landscape he is bouncing on consists of a variety of rolling hills, and which part of the hill you bounce on makes a difference in his trajectory. Hit the very top of a hill, and you’ll likely bounce up straight, while the sides will send you bouncing at an angle. Bouncing up super high will cause the screen to pull back, giving you a great view of everything available, but it also makes it harder to manage picking up items, and tough to see what’s on the ground. You’ll need to execute these maneuvers pretty swiftly as the level advances, as more and more obstacles present themselves in your path.

In addition to trying to help Fatty gain a little weight, and staying out of the way of those deadly vegetables, there are a variety of goals for you to meet, from things like collecting 350 coins in a run, to destroying six helicopters, to crushing three creatures in a single game. These are displayed along the bottom of the screen, and they are not as easy as they sound. The creatures, for instance, are spread here and there on the ground as you play, but they are tiny, usually right next to a vegetable, and often difficult to hit. Plus, there’s the whole karma thing of squishing adorable kittens and bunnies that you’ll need to get past. Don’t worry – I’m sure they’re in a better place now.

Overall, Fatty is a fun diversion that had my mobile loving teenager hooked on the first play. The bouncing mechanic is fairly easy to pick up on (once you know what you’re doing), yet requires a lot of skill to master. Plus, the whole idea of beating your own score is an intriguing one for competitive sorts. It’s an entertaining way to kill some time, and that’s good enough for me.