Tasty Way (2009)

## The Game

     Tasty Way was an iOS exclusive game in the Yumsters! series. It appears to be lost, only a Web Flash copy can be found.

### Gameplay

Here the player controls a single Yumster, who crawls along the looping path, his speed increases with each lap. The Yumster is moved around by drawing a path. He must eat fruit of the same color, which fills the bar around his icon. Once the bar is full, the player can tap on the icon to make him rainbow, so he can eat any fruit and copy its color.

When the Yumster eats a fruit of the wrong color, he leaves excrement, which must be avoided: if he runs into it later it’s Game Over. If the Yumster bumps into a mushroom, he will crawl past it in a random direction. When fruit stay on the field for a long time they gradually freeze, the Yumster can't eat a fully frozen fruit and will crawl past it as well. If the Yumster gets stuck between obstacles and can't turn anywhere it also results in a Game Over.

There are a few different collectibles to help the player:

* Rainbow: The Yumster becomes ready to change color.
* Droplet: All fruit are defrosted.
* Gas Mask: The Yumster removes all fruit (except frozen ones) and excrement in his path. The game doesn't count the fruit removed with this bonus.
* Bomb: All fruit and excrement within vision are removed.

The game had a dynamic background which went through different seasons throughout the gameplay. However it also had a winter theme at some point, that's when the Web Flash copy was made. In the winter theme the background was always icy and snowy, and the level number and menu button had snowflake underlays. The rainbow bonus and the gas mask bonus had their pictures changed to a candy cane and a snowplow respectively.

#### Screenshots

The following screenshots are from 3rd party sources. The ones on the game's page on the KranX website all use the winter theme.

#### Videos

The two videos on KranX's YouTube channel seem to be the only existing footage of the game.

### Flash Copy

While the original game is no longer available, a Flash copy for the Web exists, although it's not an exact replica. Aside from the fruit counter it has a score points system. Also, when the Yumster runs into a mushroom, it explodes and randomly changes the nearby fruit.

#### How to Run

Flash is no longer supported since the end of 2020. The browser add-on Ruffle, which works as a Flash emulator, doesn’t support Action Script 3 yet, which is used by the game, and can’t run it.

You can download the game and play it in Adobe Flash Player with Action Script 3 support (e.g. Adobe Flash Player 26 from 2017), if it doesn't support that there will only be a grey screen with noise. Alternatively you can run it in a video player.

The game ripped from a Flash game site is provided below. Here's how it was done:

1. Open the game's page on any Flash game site.
2. Right-click on the page and select View Page Source.
3. Press Ctrl + F to open the Search Bar and use it find the link to the game's file, it contains "tasty\_way\_.swf".
4. Select the link, right-click on it, choose Save As and save the SWF file on the PC.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i4j3g1d3lzmdf5l/tasty\_way.swf?dl=0

## References

The game's page on KranX's website: https://kranx.com/en/our-projects/tasty-way-en/

## Trivia

* This is the only game in the series where a Yumster crawls on land, while in the previous games Yumsters moved under the ground, or jumped over the surface from hole to hole.
* This is the only instance where a Yumster technically can eat fruit of the wrong color, although with negative consequences.
* The game uses arrangements of the first game's OST: Yumsters Song for start screen and menu, and Daylight Theme for gameplay.

### Flash Copy

* The game is permanently winter-themed.
* When starting a new game, the explanation of how to play and the countdown are skipped.
* When the Yumster turns, his body doesn't bend.
* KranX Productions is uncredited.
* The EliteGames button either leads to a defunct website or doesn't do anything.
* Another Flash game with the same name exists, which has no relation to this game.