Time Surfer: Hit Rewind

There are games that come out that just take off. Tiny Wings and its sequel, Tiny Wings 2, comes to mind. It involved a unique touch mechanic that was brand new to the iPhone and its brethren at the time, and it helped change the face of touch gaming.

Time Surfer is not Tiny Wings. But it is. And yet, it’s not. Ultimately, the relationship between Time Surfer and Tiny Wings is a bit complicated, and yet the two of them are intertwined so well that it would be difficult to tear them apart. Let’s explain why after the jump.

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The Elephant in the Room

In Tiny Wings, your goal is to fly this little bird through the world. Problem is, your wings aren’t very big and you’re a bit chubby, so you have to use the momentum of your weight to roll yourself down the hills and up the next to fly in the air. You also can collect coins to keep yourself moving along. It’s a fun little game, you should try it sometime.

In Time Surfer, your goal is to fly this little dude on a surfboard throughout multiple worlds. Problem is, your surfboard can’t really fly and there’s no propulsion unit of its own, so you have to use the momentum of your weight to roll yourself down the slopes and up the next to fly in the air. You also can collect coins to keep yourself moving along. Oh, and if you miss a jump or don’t time something perfectly, you can rewind time and redo the thing again.

So it’s hard not to compare Time Surfer to Tiny Wings. That’s not to say that it’s bad, because Time Surfer is a very fun game to play. But let’s get this out there now: I think this is a blatant rip-off of the Tiny Wings concept.

What Makes it Different

Now normally I would’ve tossed Time Surfer out and moved on with my life, but there are two very important things that differentiate Time Surfer from Tiny Wings, both of which make the game quite fun to play.

First, are the gaps. In Tiny Wings, you jump through levels and there are large gaps between each jump. In Time Surfer, there are lots of little jumps positioned all over the place. You have to time your jumps so that you can clear these gaps, and if you don’t, you’re screwed.

The second is the obvious concept that’s based in the title. In Time Surfer, you can rewind time. There’s a bar at the top of the screen that indicates how long you can rewind your moves. Just hold down on the left half of the screen and you’ll rewind your character back to whatever point you decide. Because there are so many coins to grab and gaps to clear, this mechanic becomes quite important.

The Other Stuff

Now that we’ve gotten past the big stuff, let’s talk about how this thing looks. It’s a bit retro, maybe more 32-bit than 8-bit, but still a product of a bygone era. If that’s your thing, then it’s all over Time Surfer. There are also other references to geek culture that float around (quite literally), so keep an eye out for those as well.

And let’s take a beat and discuss the whole IAP thing. Since there are all sorts of little bonuses sprinkled throughout the game, you can also buy your way to success. Although this comes in handy, it’s not something that I found was required. Instead, it was just confusing. There are prompts to buy stuff at the beginning of each game, but it’s not quite clear how it all works. I eventually figured it out, but in the process I learned that it’s not really necessary at all.

Final Thoughts

Time Surfer is about as blatant a rip-off of Tiny Wings as there can be. And yet, it’s like Tiny Wings on steroids. There’s a lot more speed, additional things to collect and/or do, and it just seems like it’s more complex than the original concept. In addition, IAP is present but not a real pain in the butt, and it’s just fun.

At the end of the day, rip-off or not, Time Surfer is fun to play. I stopped playing Tiny Wings a long time ago, and this now takes that concept and ramps it up to 10. It’s not perfect, but Time Surfer is a great way to blow a few minutes — and then rewind and get them back, of course.