I’ll admit it. I had extremely low expectations when I downloaded Fight On State, the new iPhone game developed by Penn State senior and Blue Band trumpeter Max Besong yesterday. Based on the simplicity of the preview, I totally expected to be trashing this game, but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality and how fun it is to play.

After the game is loaded, the familiar sound of the Penn State fight song comes through your speakers and the main menu prompts you with the options to play the game or do things like see the Blue Band’s schedule of appearances, learn the song lyrics of “The Nittany Lion,” “Fight On State” and Penn State’s alma mater, or a link to donate to THON.

Once the game is started, you take over the role of the drum major, meandering your way through a crowd of Blue Band members and avoiding hordes of football players before executing the famous flip to accrue bonus points for your run.

Each round gets tougher and tougher. You have more football players to avoid, and your character is moving faster and faster. The catch, however, is that if your drum major moves over various musical notes, he develops the power to unleash his inner Zach Zwinak and truck-stick over the football player and continue closer to a winning round.

As you advance further through the rounds, you eventually reach a whiteout round, where a curve ball is thrown. Visibility is tough, and for some reason, instead of football players your character is inexplicably dodging rather-friendly looking snowmen. While that wrinkle frankly confused the hell out me, it does not downgrade the quality of the game at all.

As it should, the game gets tougher as the rounds progress. I’ve only made it through seven rounds and earned a score of 4241 points. I’m sure someone out there can demolish that score.

In the end, the game is pretty awesome and best of all– it’s free. If you have an iPhone, support a Penn State student and download his game. It’s pretty awesome.