iOS classic Rolando is back!

The crucial difference between Rolando, which has just been re-released on the App Store, and LocoRoco, a game that Rolando is frequently confused with, is one of texture. LocoRoco is about squishy things. The Rolandos, meanwhile, are rigid. I imagine them as little balls of tough rubber, rolling around the game's jaunty marble mazes with a bit of weight to them as well as a bit of bounce.

It is lovely to play Rolando again. Lovely in part because it has a madeleine-like quality in 2019. While I play Supercell games constantly on my iPhone, I do not think back to the glorious wild west days of the App Store half as much as I should. With Rolando: Royal Edition comes memories of funny words I haven't thought of in what feels like an age. Was there something called NGMoco? Was there something called Trism?

It's not just that the App Store model has changed so much over the years. It's that lots of the early classics have disappeared. Rolando, I gather, has not been available for quite a while. It has disappeared in a way that is unique to mobile gaming. You can't hunt for it in the second-hand racks. You can't stumble across it on eBay. The market has buried it in concrete, and it's only now that HandCircus, the original developer has brought it back.

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