How do you mine for gems in the earth? With a flaming blue duck. DUH! Everybody knows that! You’re so dumb….sheesh.

Duckers, developed by Retro Dreamer, is a game where you choose which direction to go pulsing downward through the soil to collect gems, coins, and other prizes, with a hint of Dig Dug added to it. The plot of the game is a bit of a stretch and feels like the developer came up with an idea of a duck jetting through the soil collecting gems and coins and then decided to crap out some sort of story to justify the idea. Its a bit lame. From what I get out of the image snapshots that are intended to enlighten you on the plot of the game, is that this duck, for whatever reason, was digging in some dirt. You know, ducks are known for their exquisite digging skills. And the duck comes across a jar with a little flame dude trapped inside. The duck opens the jar, the flame dude leaps out and is delighted to be freed from his glass prison. Then for whatever reason, the flame dude comes up with the idea that if he and the duck join as one, they can dig down and collect gems. um….ya.

With Duckers, you use your finger to swipe in downward motions in whatever direction you want your little blue motherducker to go jetting through the soil to collect the gems and other items. The small gems you collect don’t stop you. Larger gems and other large items cause you to stop in your tracks upon collection of them. So using this as a strategy to stop you between swipes is how you maneuver your way down through the soil without hitting the objects that kill you. Such as the spiked walls, the armored beetle looking critters, and of course what everyone has below their garden of daisies, the laser guns and tasers.

Are you sensing that I wasn’t exactly blown away by this game?

As you dig down, down, down, you fall into an underground cave. Free falling down and collecting the floating gems and coins, without hitting any of the dangerous spike blocks that kill you. As you continue to free fall, you eventually fall enough that you begin digging through the grassy surface again. WTF? They could have at least made the screen flash or do something to signify that you passed the level/stage in some way instead of just having the graphics feel like a looped vertically scrolling image.

There are all sorts of items you collect. No missions, just collections of stuff. All of them really without much effort on your part. They are just things you collect or do as you dig your way downward. Most of which, you really don’t have much choice in doing since you can only dig downward. Of course there is stuff to purchase with the coins you collect. Main thing being other characters from your original blue duck. There is a turtle, a cat, and 2 other ducks.

This game is categorized as a kids game, and it definitively is just that.  It can be good for kids if you want to help their hand-eye coordination as it does take precise swiping motions to move downward through the dirt. Other than that, the game isn’t very challenging and gets old pretty fast. Not a game I’d recommend bothering with.  As I think most kids will get bored fairly quick with this as there is nothing that truly changes and no sense of reward or “success”.

Now duck off and go read some other articles on this badass motherduckin’ site, because this game sucks and I still wrote the review to save some of you from bothering with it.

Final Rating: 3/10

CBR Break Down:
Console Played On: iOS (iPad 2)
Available On: iOS App Store
Time to completion: (Neverending)
Price Bought at: FREE
Current Price: FREE
Recommend Purchase Price: FREE
Why you should download it: Want to test your connection to the itunes store
Why you shouldn’t download it:  Because today ends with the letter “Y”