If you’re looking for a fairly challenging game title, something portable and a game title for the whopping price of 99 cents, Pudge might be the title for you. Pudge is a swimming game for the iPhone/iPod Touch and is available through the Apple App Store. The goal of the game is to get your fish, pudge, through the level. The challenge is the levels are all water levels, given the fact your controlling a fish this makes sense. Players touch the screen to get the fish to float up and let go of the screen to get the fish to float down.

To get a good sense of what it is like to control the fish, think back to the older gaming days of Mario and the water levels. Mario never behaved the same in water as he did on land. Things took longer to do in water and Mario was a bit harder to control. Pudge is the same way. Pudge takes a bit longer to float up since he is using his fins to swim up, but takes less time to sink down.

The nature of gravity means players have to think ahead. Many of the badies come in the form of stalactites, stalagmites and other sea creatures. Everything must be avoided. Players only have one life. If you don’t avoid the obstacles, it is game over. Players have to time their assent and decent properly or they will die. The timing is extremely challenging.

The graphics in Pudge are very nice. The detail is great and the over all look of the graphics are great. Players definitely know they are swimming under the water and all of the sea creatures look like the creatures they are suppose to. In other words, players can easily tell a squid from a jelly fish.

One of the unique features in Pudge is the option to play multi-player. Yes, two people can play using one iPod Touch or iPhone. The multi-player mode cuts the screen in half and changes the screen so each player can use each end of the iPod Touch or iPhone to play. The game will recognize the seperate touches of each player and player one can see player two on their screen and vise versa.

Overall Pudge is hard. It’s very hard, but there is a big demographic for gamers that love the challenge. Within 10 minutes you’ll find yourself growing comfortable with the movement system and you’ll progress further through the game stage. However, if you’re looking for something more casual and easy, you’ll have to invest some time in this little game before you get to that level of comfort.