Cartoon Ball, a casual game with potential for Windows Phone 8

Cartoon Ball is an simple game for your Windows Phone 8 device that has you tossing (or should I say blasting) a ball into a basket. Sounds easy, right?

To make the gaming concept challenging you have obstacles to navigate around and little clusters of what appears to be confetti that you'll need to collect as you steer your ball towards the basket. Oh... and there's that pesky thing called gravity that will try to mess things up as well.

The doodle graphics give the game a casual feel, game play challenge but the mechanics of moving your ball can be a little frustrating.  While I think Cartoon Ball has potential the lack of a trial version may be the game's undoing.

The main menu for Cartoon Ball is spread out across three pages. One page contains the "About" information while the other three pages contain the gaming sections. Each three parts are progressively unlocked and collectively contains sixty levels of play.

The objective to Cartoon Ball is to move the blue ball into the waste basket while collecting little red clumps of what appears to be confetti to boost your score. The more confetti collected, the higher your score for that level.

To move your ball you tap the screen to create small explosive waves that will move the ball around. You can create a wave that will push your ball left/right, hover your ball upwards or steer it as gravity pulls it towards the bottom of the screen.

Levels of play start out slow but progressively get more challenging by adding barriers that you have to navigate your ball around. If your ball drifts off the screen, it is out of play, you've failed the level and you'll need tap the reset button and start from the beginning.

Cartoon Ball has it's challenges that help the game from getting stale.  It is a nice casual game to help you pass the time but game controls can be a challenge in and of themselves, almost to the point of being frustrating. While you tap to create a movement wave, it's difficult to gauge where your explosive wave is directed.  It would be nice to have a visual showing that wave. A targeting arrow wouldn't hurt or maybe a ripple in the graph paper illustrating the direction of the blast?

As is, some of your movements is guess work and it may take a few tries to get it right.  I don't mind that you have to avoid blasting the ball off the screen but it can be irritating when you think your ball is going to go this way and it goes that way.

Cartoon Ball has potential but I couldn't help but think a little fine tuning was in order. The biggest weakness of the game is the lack of a trial version.  The game is only $.99 but it would be nice to have a means to try things out first.

You can pick up Cartoon Ball here in the Windows Phone Store. Keep in mind it is only available for Windows Phone 8 devices.