Kite Flying - Layang Layang 4.2

Kite Fighting or "Pipa Combate," as it appears on the home screen, is supposed to be a simulation of the universal pastime of battling kites. For some people, constructing weird looking kites and flying them on the beach is not enough. They need more adrenaline perhaps, and the satisfaction that can only be provided by downing the competition.

I admit that I have never flown a kite in real life but, is it just me, or this game is completely unplayable? Even though the command scheme consists of only three maneuvers, I can barely exercise any control over the damn thing. I'm sure I'm missing some information, but the app has no tutorial or instruction section. I can't for the love of the gods figure out how to move the kite sideways.

Now, I'm no stranger to mobile games, but this is ridiculous. I did manage to enter a multiplayer game, and I was getting my... kite kicked over and over again. So used the chat function to ask for instructions, but then my absence managed to make the opponent's kite tangle around my thread. So I inadvertently won a point by typing. Weird. In any case, the player exited the match, probably in utter frustration, so my request landed on deaf ears, so to speak.

Yes, you can choose between a bazillion kite models, but it doesn't make any difference which one you pick. The app description says you can choose from multiple backdrops. However, I could not find how. The backdrops seem to be selected randomly for each game.

Final Thoughts

All in all, I am lost and confused when it comes to "Pipa Combate." It's clear that this is a one-man project, but damn, it's interface is so unfriendly that the game could probably hide in the eighties homebrew scene.