Remember back in school when you’d fold up a piece of paper to look like a football and then take turns “kicking” it with a flick of your fingers between poised hand goal posts? Yeah, it was a fun way to pass the time (and annoy the teachers) but now Jirbo has brought the classic pastime to the iPhone. 

There is a paid version of this app as well. It’s aptly named Paper Football and sells for $4.99. The only difference so far as I can tell is that in the paid version you get to compete against the Jirbo community–so long as you have a Jirbo avatar. 

But this review isn’t about the paid version. It’s about the simple little free version that I thought would be fun to try. And sure, the concept is simple enough, but who would have ever dreamed that flicking a little football across an iPhone screen would be so difficult? 

You are given the option to play one or two players. If you play one-player, you’ll be playing against the game itself. Now, when it’s your turn, you have to slide the football across the table, but not so hard that if flies off the table. Instead, it must rest in the touchdown area. After a bit of fiddling, I was able to master this. 

But the next part is the field goal. I tried in vain to get the ball through the finger goalposts, but no matter how much I flicked and swiped, the most I could manage was a football that just tumbled onto the table and slide a bit. Apparently, you have to start below the image of the ball and swipe upwards. Silly me thought it would be okay to start my swipe on the football.

The graphics are very nice and the sound effects are good but the game mechanics aren’t very responsive and lag quite a bit. This one’s a nice idea but needs some work.