Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

My First Fifteen with Looksley’s Line Up, a new 500-point DSiWare release that cunningly duplicates 3D environments, was pretty lame. It just didn’t seem to work right. Turns out, I just wasn’t sitting in enough light.

Here’s how the tech works: every time you boot up Looksley’s Line Up, you have to show it your head. Using the interior DSi camera, the game locks on to your face and then uses that position to determine how to manipulate the onscreen world. You need decent lighting and a decent contrast between your head and the background. Once you get that going, you’re in for a treat.

I hope that nobody dismisses the game simply because it features a talking rabbit wandering through classic children’s literature. The game’s hook rides on optical illusions: you locate 2D objects while changing your perspective on a 3D environment. It has to be seen in action. Still screens do nothing to explain it. It’s a lot like looking into one of those shoebox dioramas you made in fourth grade, full of construction paper cutouts and finger puppets.

The first level walks you through locating the letter “E.” Each board contains enough letters to spell a word and a handful of other objects related to kids stories (Wizard of Oz, Pinocchio, Breman Town Musicians, etc.) There are also hint coins hidden throughout, shades of Professor Layton.

Since the game uses both screens, but only half is a touchscreen, you cannot simply tap the hidden object when you find it. You have to maneuver a targeting reticle with the d-pad. This is a little awkward (depending on how you hold the DSi in book mode, I suppose), but no less awkward than having to teach the game where your face is every time you want to play.

It is fascinating to tilt the DSi around, hunting for the various symbols. Once you realize how the game hides things, you start to develop an eye for the tricks. Like, seemingly unrelated structures that are all the same color. Things get nuts when the game starts forming objects out of negative space… and even out of moving objects, so you have to wait for moving figures to align themselves in addition to getting your viewpoint at the correct angle.

In half an hour, I 100% completed the first two levels. Including the SECRET IMAGES. Looksley’s path through the boards is presented in the classic Mario overworld map style… only this time the little blue dots are actually flat! Brilliant.