Digital Worlds’ recently released iPhone game Gold Keeper [App Store] could best be described as a survival shooter, even though technically you’re not shooting anything. Similar to games like Minigore, iDracula, and all the others, in Gold Keeper you must survive as long as possible only this time instead of playing a human fighting off swarms of monsters, zombies, and demons, you play as a demon fighting off an endless supply of humans.
Gold Keeper doesn’t have any plot to speak of short of a vague description on the help screen, so you have to invent your own back story to the game. Personally, I’m not entirely sure that you’re evil, even though you’re a demon. The way I see it, you’re a demon who decided to invest in gold. You’re sitting in your cave counting your doubloons sipping an ice cold Zima when human looters decided to come steal your little demon spawn’s inheritance. The human thieves intent on stealing your hard earned life savings refused to listen to reason, so you’ve got no choice but to slay them. It’s all a matter of perspective.
The gameplay in Gold Keeper is basic, utilizing a virtual D-Pad to move around and a single on-screen button to swing your demon fists around. As you defend your pile of treasures, you eventually get a massive sledgehammer and finally a vicious looking blood covered cleaver. By killing humans and picking up power ups, the gauge on the right hand side of the screen fills up, allowing you to unleash the ultimate demon power that kills everything on screen.
As seen in this short gameplay movie, the cries of dying humans combined with the wicked soundtrack really make for a pretty silly experience. The pacing of the game is a bit slow and deliberate, especially compared to other survival shooters. Also keep a look out for the Turtles in Time-esque throwing enemies up in to the screen animation:
[ Full HD version | Low Bandwidth version ]
That’s all there is to it, survive as long as you can and when you die see where you rank on the online leaderboard. Gold Keeper has succeeded in keeping me entertained randomly for a few minutes at a time, but does suffer from repetitiveness like many of these types of games.
Though it’s not necessarily the best implementation of this formula we’ve seen, the fantasy theme makes it stand out from the herd. The developer seems extremely open to new ideas in the discussion thread for the game and is in the process of making a list of changes for the next planned update.
App Store Link: Gold Keeper, 99¢
