Culture

Platform: iOS, (2/5).

You're a simple block of tofu. The ninjutsu discipline to which you are totally dedicated does not look kindly on the superficial practises of faux-meat meals: such as the tofurkey or the toficken. Humbleness is of utmost importance, as represented by the simple red headband.
 
Aside from the laziness of any sort of vaguely ninjaish-but-without-much-effort aesthetic, To-Fu: The Trials of Chi has other odd issues with its presentation. Why is your $12 worth of tofu, along with several of the items you pick up, rendered in rough, pixelated 3D against the 2D background? I suppose it's so they could make the foodstuff do a slightly twee, mildly racist bow at the beginning of each level. But not only can 2D graphics look gorgeous (look to, you know, cartoons), they also seem to be the way to get the most mileage out of the limited iOS horsepower.
 
The level design is fundamentally pretty good, evolving in exactly the kind of learning curve I appreciate, like a good teacher slowly increasing the tension of competing skill sets in your brain. The trouble is that it perhaps isn't conducive to the micro-gaming strategy of its classmates. The great thing about Angry Birds is that aiming a slingshot is one motion, lasting milliseconds. You can literally open the game, take one shot, fail without penalty or succeed and experience an acute joy-injection, and then go back to whatever meaningless doodaa happened to be occupying you - all in less than a quarter of a minute. Conversely, To-Fu has you spending a little too much time stuck to moving platforms which would be fine in a more involving title, but the simple mechanics aren't quite sufficient to occupy you here.