Hidden Variable is a creative team of developers that formerly worked for other companies such as Insomniac Games, EA, THQ and Liquid Entertainment. Now these creative minds are bringing some oomph back into gaming, and they are very responsive to the players so you can even drop them a line of feedback or input or questions.

Now here we are looking over the cool game they sent us code for.  We have to say, wow, Glad they did. Bag It! Is a delightfully cute idea that reminds us in some ways of Tetris, only in this game the player has much more control and the game makes use of the tilting functions on iPod Touch.

The characters are silly enough with such names as Lucky (A box of cereal) Sir Eggward (You can guess that one) and then Sunshine (a carton of juice), or Crusteau (the French Bread). It is the player’s job to bag the groceries as they come down the check outline.

It’s a cool puzzle style game, using the drag and drop controls of the iPod, players move the groceries around on screen into the bag and do your best to fill the bag without crushing anything. That is the big thing here because any good bagger knows that you don’t want to drop a watermelon onto a carton of eggs. Moving things around in the bag to rearrange them is allowed, , you just cannot remove them from the bag, and bear in mind that the weight does accumulate so as you stack more in, things are getting heavier, so anything at the bottom of your bag will want to be resilient indeed.

The challenges come with getting everything to fit, and also beating the timer in some of those zany stages. After bagging things up, tilt the iPod back and forth to shake things a bit and make them settle, this will tell the tale…if the player did things very well in their bagging abilities, nothing will tilt and or shift enough to crush anything. Being creative is the key here, if you fill a bag and there are more items waiting to be placed in the bag, you have to do it over again till you can get them all in the bag.

With different game modes and lots of levels and plenty of unlocks and modes the game will keep things interesting as you pass the time gaming your heart out. A truly surprising gem in the rush of game apps for portable devices, Bag It! Is well worth the visit to your virtual grocer and have at it… Bag It!

This is a catchy little app that even occupied our photographer Donna Millheim, so you really have something when delighting such a discerning gamer. Do yourselves a favor Impulse Gamer’s, do not miss this one.

Have fun play games

Edwin Millheim