The idea behind the TouchArcade Game of the Week is that every Friday afternoon we post the one game that came out this week that we think is worth giving a special nod to. Now, before anyone goes over-thinking this, it doesn’t necessarily mean our Game of the Week pick is the highest scoring game in a review, the game with the best graphics, or really any other quantifiable “best" thing. Instead, it’s more just us picking out the single game out of the week’s releases that we think is the most noteworthy, surprising, interesting, or really any other hard to describe quality that makes it worth having if you were just going to pick up one.
These picks might be controversial, and that’s OK. If you disagree with what we’ve chosen, let’s try to use the comments of these articles to have conversations about what game is your game of the week and why.
Without further ado…
Traps n’ Gemstones
Nestled in between mega-releases like Modern Combat 5 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles this week is a brand new game from one of my all-time favorite iOS developers: Donut Games. Donut has made their mark by crafting dozens of “coffee break" style games that are a perfect fit for mobile devices. Typically focusing on puzzle and arcade games, Donut’s latest release Traps n’ Gemstones ($4.99) is quite a departure for them. It’s a full blown action platformer in the style of “Metroidvania", meaning the entire game takes place on a single huge map and as you progress and learn new abilities or gain new items you’ll slowly be able to unlock new areas of the map.
In terms of how they handled this type of game, particularly since it’s sort of out of their comfort zone, I think Donut totally nailed it. Traps n’ Gemstones is an expansive adventure set in an Egyptian pyramid and it feels like it could be called Indiana Jones: The Video Game, right down to the satisfying feeling of cracking your whip into the face of the pyramid’s creepy crawlies. There are plenty of well-designed environmental puzzles and a great sense of exploration as you slowly uncover new areas.
That’s all well and good, but what really sticks out to me about Traps n’ Gemstones is how very, well, Donut-y it still feels despite being a very different kind of game from them. The art style and UI all feels right in line with other Donut games, and even the gameplay feels very accessible for the type of game it is. It’s easy to pop in and beat a couple of areas if you have a few minutes to spare, or sit down for an hour or more uncovering large areas of the pyramid.
But my favorite part about the game is how the scoring system works. Donut games are traditionally very score-focused, with people spending months and even years squeezing every last point out of a game like Cat Physics or Cave Bowling for a spot in the leaderboards. While Metroidvania games aren’t typically about high scores, Traps n’ Gemstones very much is. The way it works is all of the treasure you collect on a journey and all the enemies you kill all contribute to your score. The catch is that once you die, and you’ll die with just a single hit, your score is set back to zero. You don’t lose much in terms of progress as you’ll be respawned right at the screen where you perished, but death will mean the end of your high scoring dreams.
In this way, high score chasers will have to be very careful during their adventure, and I’m eager to see if somebody can beat the entire game and collect all the gems on just one life, attaining the ultimate score. That seems like an impossible goal for myself, but I am really enjoying trying to last as long as possible each life and comparing those scores with my Game Center friends. Leaderboard fun is pretty much the last thing I expected from a Metroidvania like this, but it’s definitely added to my enjoyment while playing.
Of course if you don’t care about scores, Traps n’ Gemstones is a worthy adventure anyway with a big world to explore, puzzles to solve, plenty of combat and an interesting little storyline tying it all together. There aren’t a whole lot of these types of action platformers on iOS, and even fewer that are especially well done, but Donut has come up with a winner with Traps n’ Gemstones.
