Strategy mode is essentially a digital board game, capitalizing on the famed rivalry between penguins and polar bears. You start of the game stranded on a glacier. You will then select clusters of the tiny butlers, situated on single squares of the overall terrain, that must leap into a cartoon-cloud of battle against opposing bunches of bears. After each turn, your swarms seemingly reproduce, as every block gets an additional penguin. This is the more cerebral half of the package.
Campaign mode is much more involved, turning the black-and-white arctic boys into living fodder. As the title suggests, each level starts off with you needing to time your propulsion of up to six penguins into the arena before poking them to come sailing down at bears standing around, nefariously eating their bowls of cereal or practicing their punches. Except for the final boss, all bears will sink if they’re touched by one of the crazy penguins. It’s a deceptively simple concept, and one perfectly suited for making the iPhone viable for a couple of minutes of fun.
