Nimble Strong: A Great Mixer of Anime and Alcohol for the iPhone
Nimble Strong is a new bar-tending themed game for the iPhone which combines the charm of an old school Nintendo role playing game with an otaku-friendly anime art direction style. However unlike so many Nintendo DS games where you’re challenged with a unrelated quiz at every turn (like Professor Layton) what makes the gameplay here so wonderful is that to advance in the game you have to mix a drink. And you’re not just blindly clicking on a tumbler to score points, but actually learning to bartend as you go along:
At first you start out slow with basic drinks, but as the game advances the mixology becomes more advanced as you go. The result is that you’re not just playing a game but learning a skill that may be applied in the real world. I should also note that the design of the game really takes advantage of the iPhone touch screen:
What I also enjoyed about this game is that while many iPhone games are either ports from another platform or very casual and light weight, Nimble Strong went quite deep: In other words you could really spend more than a few quality hours playing this game. Another nice aspect of the game is that you meet a nice array of interesting characters, and while they may not be deep they’re always entertaining and feature an anime look that reminds me of a dating sim game in a good way. And as silly as the dialog gets, it’s always charming:
In many ways Nimble Strong reminded me a great deal of what I loved about Iron Chef in that the developers took their passion for mixology and created a entertaining way to draw you virtually into the very complex world of cocktails. In fact I think a hallmark of the game is that it’s just as entertaining to lose a round and you want to keep coming back for more. And even after a few minutes you start to really learn something that can be applied to your actual real world social life.
Disclaimer: I actually know the producer of this game (Adam Ghahramani) very well — although that’s all the more reason that I’d be a hard ass on this review! You see Adam runs theotaku.com so if this game was in any way unworthy I’d be giving him grief about it because as I know that he’s a fanboy my level of expectations are much higher. I should also note that I actually paid for my copy of the game to make sure I had that extra bit of objectivity about the price point (which was well worth it).