I first saw the mobile game, Mama Hawk at last year’s Play NYC expo in New York City and really enjoyed my time with the game The NYC demo wasn’t the full version of the game but it did give me a taste and I knew I wanted to see more when it was available in its full form.
Mama Hawk tells the tale of Mama Hawk trying her best to feed her baby hawks whatever wildlife is in the area. She can’t do it alone and this is where you come in. You will need to direct Mama Hawk all over the screen gathering animals to feed her babies as well as upgrading her abilities along the way so she can perform tasks easier. These tasks will include flying faster or picking up heavier animals like deer! You’ll be able to upgrade your Mama in quite a few ways during gameplay. During gameplay you’ll be able to collect currency that will allow you to upgrade abilities such as speed and strength.
You’ll be able to spin the Ladybug wheel on the stage select screen to get currency as well but you have to allow time to pass between spins but it’s a small amount, about 15 minutes. You can also get a daily bonus of coins but you have to watch an advertisement and the question becomes if you buy the ad-free version of the game for two dollars, do you get the same extra coin features like this? Even though the ad-free version is two dollars, I’m not a fan of having to pay anything to not deal with ads during my gameplay. You don’t notice them at first but if you’re trying to get as many coins as possible, the ads will get annoying pretty quick. The game has a mini built in tutorial where it will help you when you need at times, like when you try to pick up the deer early on in the game and it tells you to upgrade Mama Hawk’s strength. After you figure that out, the game doesn’t give away too much but it does have an wildlife wiki built right into it where you can get info on animals that you encounter during gameplay.
You can get hints on how to deal with the skunks if you forget how to handle them or info on the crows; it’s all in the wiki on the level select screen. You’ll also be able to upgrade the costumes for Mama Hawk and these are pretty funny and fit in with the game perfectly. You can become a Cowgirl Hawk and have sheriff stars flying around while you feed your babies or you can become a Mime or a Pirate and get to fly around different environments searching for animals to feed your babies. You’ll have to be quick and smart since your babies get hungry fast and some of the animals have special ways to be caught. For example, you need to drop a log on a skunk to not it out so it doesn’t smell and thus allow you to get close enough to grab it.
You will also have to deal with other animals in the environment such as crows who go crazy and you’ll have to learn their flight pattern quickly if you expect to get to food and then get to your babies in time. The controls are pretty straightforward and you’ll have plenty of time to master them. They’re easy to pick up right from the start but you’ll want to keep playing even though the game has a simplistic formula. One thing that I’m happy to see is that the feeling of repetition didn’t rear it’s ugly head into my gameplay sessions.
You might think that a game like Mama Hawk would get old pretty fast but that wasn’t the case as the later levels change enough that you feel challenged over and over again. You also want to collect all the costumes too! If you get hooked on Mama Hawk, you can even go to the online shop that has items like clothing based on animals/events in the game, which is pretty cool! To recap, Mama Hawk is a mobile game with easy to learn controls that will have you playing for hours. It has a free version but the ad-free version costs two bucks, which I’m not ok with but doesn’t hinder my opinion of the actual game, which is really good. The repetition feeling never came into play, which is a good thing, and if you want, you can buy a Mama Hawk t-shirt! It’s these reasons that I’m giving Mama Hawk for mobile devices a 9/10. I would like to thank Computer Lunch for the review code.