Kahuna Review
Beautiful surf, tropical drinks and a dangerously overweight Polynesian rocking out on his ukulele – that’s the kind of mental image I see when people talk about islands of the South Pacific. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like heaven to me. Designed by German-based developer USM, Kahuna comes so close to delivering a similarly pleasurable experience. However, it falls well short of being an iOS gem due to a number of fundamental technical flaws in its design.
Lets start with the basics. A match in Kahuna is played over three continuous rounds where you and your opponent battle for control over 12 deserted islands in the South Pacific. Each player is initially dealt three cards, which construct bridges. If you control the majority of bridges connected to an island you will conquer it with a Kahuna stone. The person who conquers the most islands at the end of each round will ultimately emerge the victor.
The vibrant palette and quirky characters fit perfectly with the “island” theme of the game. The art style successfully captures the tropical mood as well as offering up some much welcomed comedic relief - being in stark contrast to the mentally exhausting gameplay of the actual Kahuna card game. The visuals are well supported by the soundscape, too. The intro music for the main menu is charming, and thankfully it doesn’t outstay its welcome by continuing into the actual gameplay. Instead you’re given a bunch of beautiful ambient sounds to immerse yourself in – crashing waves and flocking seagulls are the perfect partners for gameplay that demands so much strategic thinking.
However, immersive aesthetics and engaging gameplay can only carry you so far and Kahuna ultimately crumbles under the pressure of unfortunate technical issues.
Kahuna seems unable to handle multi-tasking. Closing and reopening the app in the middle of a game will cause the current game to be lost, greeting you with the main menu instead. This can be extremely frustrating when playing on your iPhone and someone calls you in the middle of a game. To make matters worse I’ve actually had the game freeze during a match a number of times. Needless to say this is terribly disheartening and hard to forgive.
The AI opponents are incredibly difficult to defeat, too. Even the fisherman, who is the first person I had to play against, destroyed me over and over again. Admittedly once I figured out the rules of Kahuna things did get easier, but learning the rules is incredibly tedious. The tutorial is way too short – blink and you’ll miss it. I spent the next several rounds performing a series of trial-and-error experiments before I really understood what was going on. There is an actual rule book included, but this seems like a poor excuse for having unconventional difficulty scaling and an unconvincing tutorial in a game that not too many people are going to be all that familiar with.
Kahuna has all the right ingredients to be an iOS must-have. But due to the overbearing technical issues in the games design, it’s hard to recommend Kahuna to others until these problems are resolved.
Verdict: The touchscreen feels like the perfect home for Kahuna, but developer USM definitely needs to address the cracks in its foundations before it's too late and the walls come crumbling down.
