Super Mario fans gather around.

If you have been looking for a side-scrolling platformer game for your iPhone or iPod Touch, you should be very happy with Bounce On!

Team Phobic released Bounce On to the iTunes App Store on December 20th, 2008. While the initial release left a lot to be desired, Team Phobic has been loyally updating the game ever since. With these frequent updates, Bounce On is quickly becoming one of our favorite iPhone games here at AppSmile headquarters.

So what’s the game all about?
You play as a bouncy ball that has gotten lost after falling out of a pocket. Your goal is to make it through 30 Levels (so far) and find your home safely.

Bounce On makes your trip home quite a bit of fun. You will encounter well-designed enemies, power-ups, and free lives along the way. Collect diamonds throughout each level to gage your skill. Team Phobic has also provided a thumping soundtrack. The music is good and shuffles between 2 songs in each world. We hope more are on the way. It would be nice if Team Phobic included a unique song for each level.

Game control is intuitive and responsive. The accelerometer is used to move left, right, up, and down and touching the screen makes the character jump. We love that the developers allowed the jump height to be controlled by how long you touch the screen. Great feature. Jump to avoid enemies and advance through different stages of the board. You can also jump on enemies to defeat them.

With a lack of worthwhile platform-type game in the App Store, Bounce On will instantly be compared to the current king Rolando. Actually, we think Bounce On gives Rolando a run for it’s money. While Roland gives a more professional graphic experience, Bounce On stays truer to a side-scroller and you might find the controls less frustrating.

Let’s run down our favorite features…

Great Features:

• 4-song soundtrack is polished
• Pleasing graphics and Over World
• Lots of power-ups and additional lives well placed throughout boards
• 2 15-level Worlds and more to come!
• Well designed characters
• Excellent controls
• Addictive game play
• Lots of updates from Team Phobic

Weaknesses:

• Only 4 Songs
• When active your main character is expressionless
• Only a handful of sound effects
• No points for defeating enemies
• Lack of big bosses at the end of each World

When Team Phobic released Bounce On they offered 15 levels in one world. Soon World 2 was available as a free update providing 15 additional levels. Now the developers are promising World 3 sometime in March. We can’t wait!

Bounce On gets our AppSmile 5-Dimple rating: