In our household it seems to be a constant struggle to keep socks in pairs. They disappear in the laundry basket, in the washing machine, on the line, down the back of the sofa, and thus we have a huge odd sock pile. In this iPhone game by Flip23, Nora’s having sock problems as well. Her socks are falling from the sky and you need to help her catch them before they end up lost in the long grass.
The game play here is simple. You use your finger to drag Nora along the bottom of the screen so she can catch the socks in her basket. Each sock is worth 10 points. Miss five socks and it’s game over: Nora’s going to have to explain to her husband why he’s only got odd socks for work tomorrow.
Despite the game’s simplicity, there are a couple of flaws with its execution. For a start, there’s very little skill involved in getting a high score. My best attempt came from rubbing my finger quickly back and forth across the screen for the entire duration of the game, rather than carefully lining up the socks with the basket. Moreover, when I happened to take my finger off the screen, then Nora sometimes got stuck – forcing me to watch in horror as the socks disappeared while I frantically tried to get her moving again.
In the top right-hand corner of the screen, there’s a countdown labeled ‘missed’. This is not actually how many socks you have missed, but how many more you’re able to miss before the end of the game.
These problems, and the fact that you’re only trying to better your own high score rather than competing with other players, meant that Nora’s Socks dropped off my regular play list after only a couple of games. Then, just like an odd sock, it disappeared amongst all my other applications, and was seemingly lost forever.
