Game Watch Collection is an Android Wear app that features three different games for people to play on their smartwatches like the G Watch R, Moto 360 and Huawei Watch (as well as all others running Android Wear). The three different games included are CandyLand, EURO2016 Dribble and Flappy Goat Escape. Each game is a little different, CandyLand asks players to tap their display and add a lollipop to a spinning ball, without adding two that are touching or adding another where one already rests. EURO2016 Dribble asks players to tap on either side of their watch to get past the oncoming defenders as you take the ball to the goal. Flappy Goat Escape is of course similar to Flappy Bird, but rather than tapping to keep the bird up in the air, you tap to send the goat to the top or the bottom of the display. All three of them connect to Google Play Games for leaderboard support. These three are the first games to be adding to the Game Watch Collection, more are coming, but for now let’s take a look at these three.
First off, users need to have an Android Wear smartwatch, this will not work on a Pebble or Samsung smartwatch. With that said, it can be downloaded for free from the Play Store. The phone app is how people can change the different games as well as access the Google Play Games integration.
Launching the app will give you a look at the three different games, but rather than each of them being standalone games to launch on your Android Wear watch, they work as a watch face. Which means that you need to head on over to the Android Wear app (or change it on your watch, of course) and select Game Watch, as I have here:
When this is done, users can select one of the different games from the app, it will display their score (which connects to Google Play Games) and there’s a little watch icon. As you can see, there’s a Google Play Games Leaderboard ranking for each of the three games.
Touching the watch will change the Game Watch watch face to that particular game, taking a look at Candyland it looks like this as a watch face:
The game then looks like this when playing, it’s a simple affair that just asks players to tap and add one of their lollipops to the spinning holder:
I found this a lot of fun actually, and the combination of timing and a single-tap control mechanism makes this well-suited to a Smartwatch like Android Wear watches.
Moving on to EURO2016 Dribble and there’s a little description inside of the phone app as there is for each of the games.
This is a little different from the other two games as it asks players to tap either the left or right-hand side of the display in order to dodge the oncoming defenders. it’s a little tricky to capture it on my watch, but the action is smooth and this is a pretty challenging game.
These might be small, little watch games on the surface, but they are a little more detailed than you’d imagine, for instance EURO2016 Dribble gives players the opportunity to choose their preferred team and such.
Last but not least is the Flappy Goat Escape game, itself a take on the classic Flappy Bird game.
Flappy Goat Escape is actually a pretty fully-featured game. Again, it features simple one-tap controls that players should be able to get familiar with nice and quickly. It asks that players dodge oncoming obstacles and enemies by sending the goat to either the top or bottom of the display, and this looks pretty good on a watch.
These are just the first three games available in Game Watch Collection, there are more on their way.
After spending time with the three different games on offer here in Game Watch Collection, I can certainly see some value here, and each game has its high points. For instance, i though Candy Land was a great arcade style game that a lot to offer fans of one-tap games, and it certainly suits a smartwatch pretty well. The same can be said for Flappy Goat Escape, the one-tap control method worked well there as well, and the classic formula was good fun. Where things became not so good however, was with the EURO 2016 Dribble game, its controls were a little difficult to get my head around, and all-in-all, I just thought it was a little clunky. Still, one bad game out of a selection of three is certainly nothing to be ashamed of, and there are more of these games on there way, apparently.
Ratings
- Speed (4/5) – Game Watch Collection runs just fine on Android Wear devices, and there’s little extra battery drain, either.
- Theme (4/5) – All the graphics and themes look good, with some retro-looking graphics that are easily-understood on the watch.
- Features (4/5) – With three different games on offer (and more coming), each with their own watch face, there’s a lot on offer here and they’re all a lot of good fun, too. Plus, Google Play Games integration makes it easy to keep track of your high scores and compare them to friends’ scores.
- Overall (4/5) – A solid selection of games for Android Wear watches, Game Watch Collection is good fun, and I can’t wait to see what other games are added.
Pros
- Simple controls suit a smartwatch very well, nothing is too complicated here and kids can even play along easily.
- Candy Land is a great arcade game that feels like it was meant to be played on nothing but a smartwatch.
- Flappy Goat Escape is a nice new take on a familiar classic that a lot of people will know and love.
- EURO2016 Dribble is both relevant as well as a little more challenging than the other two games.
Cons
- No way of launching games directly from Android Wear, users might choose the watch face, then change it on the phone app.
- Better-looking watch faces would make users more likely to keep them there.
All-in-all, Game Watch Collection is a great Android game for Android Wear watches that should happily appeal to a lot of different players out there. I didn’t like the need to have the watch face in use at all times when playing the games here and there, but this won’t bother everyone. Launchable apps from the Android Wear menu would be nice to see, but otherwise these are great games that are a little bit of fun and are easily-played on a smartwatch. There are more games coming to Game Watch Collection in the future, too.