The Year’s Most Addictive Mobile Game Is Delightfully Absurd

In the year’s most addictive, fast-paced mobile game, a jolly, round-bellied character with a hand for a head uses a green, flopping fish as a table tennis ball. It later shoots arrows at a bull’s-eye that pops up from a toaster like an Eggo waffle.

Humorous absurdity fuels the fun in What the Clash?, an Apple Arcade exclusive inspired by Nintendo’s irreverent WarioWare microgames.

Initially, I was terrible at the first three games available in this silly endeavor: twisted table tennis, racing and archery. (Five more games can be unlocked for free.) Yes, there are tutorials, sometimes obtuse. But they do not prepare you for the strange mash-ups that are to come, which seem like they were created by a mad scientist. The result is more Mel Brooks than Mary Shelley.

At the start of each round, three game cartridges are presented at a poker table seen from a bird’s-eye perspective by two online players. A green wine bottle spins and randomly chooses, say, the racing game, which is placed into a console that looks suspiciously like something Nintendo made in the 1980s.

Each player is then dealt a selection of cards, putting forth the one that may lead to victory — and almost certainly to chaos. The combination of cards is what provides the game’s ingenuity. In one daunting fusion, mini slot-car racers are blocked at times by the paws of insouciant black cats. Getting to the finish line requires a sense of timing that must come naturally to some. But not to me.

Twisted humor is everywhere in What the Clash?, a sequel to What the Golf? and What the Car? At every milestone, a tortured “Happy Birthday” is squeezed out on a concertina. I imagined it was played by Clash Handicoot, an older stock character who is a nod to a popular 1996 PlayStation game.