Cut the Rope 2 1.39.0

The Play Store gets its fair share of puzzlers each day, or probably week. Few of those manage to rise to the general audience's attention though. To do that a game should be balanced in terms of difficulty and at the same time pleasing to the eye.

Eye Candy

Cut the Rope 2 centered around the character Om Nom, a ball like green creature with green skin, big eyes and two pairs totally unfit legs. As seen in the introduction, Om Nom's stash of candy is stolen by a group of black soot balls that manage to drop all of it in the forest. Therefore Om Nom must scour the forest in order to eat all of its candy once and for all and eventually reaching candy land.

The puzzles in CtR2 revolve around taking the piece of candy to Om Nom, taking Om Nom to the piece of candy or a combination of those two. This wouldn't be too hard if the forest itself wouldn't look like it wants to mimic the topography of the World of Goo. As Om Nom can't jump or climb, it is up to you, the player to use an array of more or less arcane tools. The first one deals with the subject matter: ropes. The candy is always hanging on one or more ropes that are tied to balloons or platforms. Getting the timing right on cutting the ropes can yield decent, great or catastrophic results, depending solely on your skill. This is a serious game gentlemen. Moving on.

Each level also contains three suspended stars which can only be collected by the piece of candy itself. Collecting these will score better but are not essential to completing the level.

Things are not always easy, and sometimes Om Nom needs the help of his friends which appear as part of the puzzles themselves. Either than that, the player has a limited amount of extra balloon which they can tie to any object, some bombs which blow up (obviously) and a handful of portals which transport Om Nom form one spot to another. Curious skill indeed. I wonder if Om Nom's actual existence is in some way linked to the scientists at CERN. Well, who knows...

As you play, puzzles increase in difficulty by introducing new elements and placing the three stars in arguably inconvenient spots. But with some extra cash which you earn by completing the levels with some level of professionalism, you can buy extra balloons, bombs and portals, as well as tips which are consumed to guide you step by step within levels (one per level that is).

You can also buy powerups in the shop. You'll find them along customization items for Om Nom, and merchandise which currently consists of three types of iPhone cases. Sun Power might also be a good option if you really like to play this a lot. One sun power point is spent with each try of a level but it is restored once every 5 minutes. That essentially makes one try per five minutes.

Conclusion

Cut the Rope 2 is a fun kid friendly game, which despite of its looks, can get very challenging later on. Especially if you aim for completion. In App purchases are possible but not required, at least until you get fed up with waiting in which case there's one major purchase which removes ads and lifts the sun power restriction. The animations are smooth and nice looking and the puzzles fun. Most important, the control is good with good timing between command and result which makes CtR2 a very well made title.