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…
Spike City
It’s a pretty safe bet that when Nitrome puts out a new game, whether they developed it entirely themselves or are simply publishing it for another studio, that it’ll be a winner. That trend hold as true as ever with their newest release Spike City (Free), which was developed by Nitrome’s own Joseph Gribbin. Spike City is a vertical platformer not entirely unlike Nitrome’s incredibly successful Leap Day, in that your job is to beat sections of levels at a time that sort of act like “floors" in a building. Instead of the auto-running and jumping of Leap Day though, Spike City employs a swipe-to-fly control scheme that sends your little character in any of the cardinal directions with a swipe until he hits something to stop him. Think The Last Rocket or Tomb of the Mask.
There’s one important distinction in Spike City compared to those other games, and that’s the spikes! Or rather, the singular spike that is sticking out of your head. If you swipe in a direction and then hold your finger on the screen, you’ll stick into the surface that you ended up running into, and basically the entire game is built around utilizing this mechanic. And it’s wonderful! There are so many imaginative ways the game has you use the spike mechanic, not to mention the dexterity and fast reactions needed to negotiate around the other obstacles and hazards, that it all just gels wonderfully into a familiar but totally unique experience. You’ll be doing all this in a randomly generated endless mode or via a more traditional level-based campaign, complete with boss fights galore. Plus there are more unlockable character customization items than you can shake a spike at as well as a set of upgradeable power-up items, lending a minor sense of progression to the game. As with most Nitrome games this one is free with ads that can be disabled with IAP so there’s no reason not to take yourself down to Spike City where the grass is green and… you know what? Never mind.
