Ramp Champ – Everything You Loved About Skeeball
The Icon Factory has been around for a long time. They are responsible for the great twitter client Twitteriffic. Now they bring you nostalgia in a pretty package in the form of Ramp Champ. An homage to Skeeball games that you loved as a kid. The Icon Factory didn’t leave out anything, including those useless prizes for tickets or the fun of skeeball. So get your tokens ready and try your luck!
From the moment you boot the app up, Ramp Champ sucks you in. The app just oozes high quality presentation and production values. Old-timey boardwalk/carnival music sets the backdrop of the main menu, which is four differently themed skeeball machines. Each theme is beautiful with high quality textures and pleasant design. In the Space War theme, your targets are waves of aliens in formation while the underwater theme has you aiming at fish and crabs among other things. All told the four themes included in the game are varied and awesome. Ramp Champ is one of the first Appstore games that offers in-app purchases. At launch, Ramp Champ had two DLC packs for $.99 (USD) each. he packs contain two more themes each and a slew of prizes and trophies. My Ramp Champ now has eight tables and each one is a blast to play.
Ramp Champ’s gameplay distinguishes itself from the other skeeball apps in the Appstore because of its inclusion of Goals. Goals are objectives that you need to complete. Each table has three goals and if you complete all three you get a gold trophy, silver for two, and bronze for one. The goals are a lot of fun and the biggest reason that Ramp Champ will have you coming back for more. The goals are specific to each table. For Instance in Space war, one of the goals is to “Defeat the second wave.” Since you only get ten balls to begin with, you would need to get past the first wave with enough balls leftover to defeat the second wave. Not all of the goals are this hard, but its difficulty isn’t repelling, its compelling.
The gameplay is simple but solid. Your finger swipes determine the speed and angle of the skeeball. The controls are easy to pick up and fun to master because the game itself is so much fun.After each round of skeeball, you will get a number of tickets that varies depending on your score. You collect tickets and then take them over to the prize counter to redeem them for prizes. Each table brings its own page of prizes, so there can be quite a few to collect. As silly as it seems, it is somewhat rewarding. All the prizes look good and all have little descriptions with them. Your prize collection and trophies collection are displayed in a display case that you can access with the push of a button. 
The issues that presented themselves were few and far between. Though the sound of the game is top-notch, there seems to be a glaring omission. Somehow there is no sound effect for the skeeball in motion on the ramp. Is the ramp made of felt? Is it a ninja skeeball that is silent? The only reason this is a big deal is because the whole game is you throwing a skeball. Also how bout a bit of customization, letting us pick the color of the skeeball would be nice.
Ramp Champ provides hours of entertainment. If your’e a completionist, this game will have you craving tickets. If you’re just a skeeball fan, the add-on packs, both available and to come, will keep this game fresh for a long time. If youre just an iGamer casually, this is one of the best pick up and play games in the Appstore.
