Dizzy Bee by Igloo Games is a top down arcade style puzzler which puts players in charge of a cute little bee trying to save his fruit friends. Players guide the bee through levels by tilting and turning their iPhone or iPod Touch in various directions. Each level contains flowers to collect, fruit friends to rescue, monsters to avoid and an exit portal that Dizzy Bee must guide his friends through. Scoring for each level is determined by how many flowers you collect, how many of your fruit friends survive and how many of your friends exit the level together. Levels are contained on islands and connected by pathways. Dizzy Bee can buzz around the pathways to access the levels and take a boat to explore new islands. The whole thing is kinda Super Mario Brothers 3, which is to say, it’s totally awesome.

Dizzy Bee sure has a lot of depth and strategy for a cutesy puzzle game. In most levels, one or more monsters will stand between you and the exit threatening to turn you and your fruit buddies into a smoothie. Some monsters are controlled by your tilting and turning motions, some spin in one direction or another, some seek you out and others follow a particular pattern. The skill it takes to successfully guide you and your buddies safely around all the different monster types grows with each level. It also breaks up the game play and makes each level feel like a fresh challenge. To complete a level Dizzy Bee must tap all of his fruits friends and head for the exit. While Dizzy Bee can complete levels even if all his buddies are squashed, special icons are placed on top of completed levels based on your performance. Replaying levels to get a better star icon or the kings crown icon adds a lot of replay to the game. Each island in Dizzy Bee appears to have something like a boss level indicated by specific piece of background music. Additionally, the background for each level are specific to each island Dizzy Bee is on. It’s touches like these that make Dizzy Bee and standout game.

Adventuring through Dizzy Bee land is a real joy. The games graphics and sounds are simple but really well done. The sailing music, the pathway buzz, the exit “yippie” and other sound effects add a very polished feel to the game besides being cute and fun to hear. The graphics also feel very polished. Sure, they’re a bit simple but I think that’s what makes them work. The flowers, the fruits, the islands, the boat and other graphical icons all serve to create this simple and cute little world to go puzzling in.

I picked up Dizzy Bee late last night and figured I’d preview it for a few minutes before calling it quits for the night. An hour later I was still playing. I just love the game. From the opening splash screen to finally completing my first perfect island Dizzy Bee never lost its fun. The tilt and turn controls are unique to the iPhone and iPod and work well in the game, the scoring has depth and tons of replay value and the levels are well thought.

It’s really hard to find anything wrong with Dizzy Bee. I do wish completing an island’s levels perfectly revealed a hidden bonus level or some other unlockable. It also might have been fun if there was a way for Dizzy Bee to collect or purchase power ups which could be used to freeze enemies or shield his fruit buddies or otherwise get some help on one level per island. Also, a score is given for each completed level but I couldn’t find a way to see my global game score. The game load screen (which allows you to save 3 different instances of the game) only displays levels completed, not your global score.

Dizzy Bee is a fun filled arcade style puzzle game which has a lot of style and production value. Serious thought went into every part of this game and it shows. Whether you like puzzle games are not, I would strongly suggest you pickup Dizzy Bee. At $2.99 it’s one heck of a deal.

By: Aaron Robbins