Is Tiki Totems 2 Enough of an Upgrade Over Tiki Totems Premium?

Tiki Totems 2 is the sequel to the popular iPhone puzzle game app, Tiki Totems Premium. The game is designed around the idea of totems – religious deities to a group of masks with feet that are afraid the volcano will erupt unless you can land the Tiki God safely on a rock near the ground.

I had an opportunity to play Tiki Totems Premium when it was given away for free in an effort to market their new game, Tiki Totems 2. After I completed all of the levels, I decided to buy Tiki Totems 2 with the expectation that the game would be better and more difficult (as Tiki Totems Premium ended up being fairly simple). Thoughts are as follows:

Fun Differences Between Tiki Totems 2 and Tiki Totems Premium

• The sequel introduced a round totem that makes the game more difficult.
• The sequel introduced new graphics and the ability to create levels.
• The sequel has far more levels than the original did.

That’s about it. The game is certainly longer, but it’s not much more difficult (with the exception of the round totem). The colors are nicer. There aren’t many upgrades from the original game.

Serious Flaws Between Tiki Totems 2 and Tiki Totems Premium

• Little tribal men run on the bottom of the screen and can get in the way of your timing unless you blow them up – in other words, the tribal members that you are trying to save need to be killed, otherwise they’ll get in your way. That’s annoying, and a useless added challenge since they characters are otherwise designed to be fun to watch.
• There is a small lag in between when you win the level and when it tells you that you have won the level. That lag is short – maybe a half second at most – but it’s annoying, especially as you’re flying through levels. The original game also didn’t have this lag, which means it was introduced in this new game.
• The game isn’t really much different than the original. It’s hard to justify the idea of paying for a second game if you already paid for the first, nearly identical game. I had a similar issue with the idea of buying Angry Birds Seasons, since that game is also identical to the first.

Overall Thoughts

The game is not different enough to truly justify calling it a second game. In fact, they could easily have simply added this all to the first game to give it more depth. The little tribal men are also a serious inconvenience without really benefitting the game. Still, as is often the case with iPhone app games, Tiki Totems 2 is only .99 in the app store. When prices are that low, even with all of these flaws, it may still be worth buying the game.