TrapIt, by Little Geek
TrapIt is an iPhone and iPod touch game made by local developer Little Geek. The premise of the game is to trap these little coloured prisms by ‘fencing’ off areas with your finger, trapping each individual prism (hence the name, TrapIt). Read after the break to see how I got on with this highly addictive and exciting iOS game!
When we first launch the app, we are presented with an attractive home screen which is easy to navigate and gets the point.
TrapIt home screen
So naturally, I clicked the obvious ‘Start Game’ button to get right into it, unbeknown as to what I would encounter. Needless to say, I was utterly confused! So after reading up on how to actually play the game (via the Instructions menu option), I got a grasp of what the purpose of the game actually is. Right from the get-go I could tell this was an innovative and original idea and I couldn’t wait to get stuck in!
The idea of the game is to use your finger to create ‘breaks’ in the screen (horizontally or vertically) in order to isolate the prisms that are flying around. If your break isolates an empty area (ie. there are no prisms in it), the area will fill in and you will receive bonus points. If you make a break where a prism currently is, you will lose a life. Additionally, if you fail to break the prisms up into separate areas before the timer ends (the decreasing red bar up the top), you will also lose a life (indicated by the kiwis in the top bar).
Completion of a level with no bonus points for filling area, on my last life.
The game has an interesting trade off. If you cut off more area (so it fills in, unlike the above image) you will receive more fill bonus. However, the more you do that, the harder it is to isolate the prisms. So you’ve got to be careful not to fill in too much, or you will find that you can’t isolate the remaining prisms before time runs out or breaking on where a prism is, both events resulting in a life lost.
Getting the hang of 'filling', with two lives left
On some levels you may come across a ‘Powerup’ which you can obtain by isolating it with one of the prisms. It can then be used by tapping it in the bottom half of the gameplay screen.
Filling in a lot of area, and collecting a PowerUp!
Despite not playing many games, this is definitely going to become a permanent resident on my iPhone 3GS. It’s pretty easy to play, but the trade-off between getting Fill Bonus and easily trapping the prisms make it a game of whits and will probably bring out your inner gambler! It’s bloody addictive – dare I compare it to the almighty Doodle Jump? Heck yes – it’s a lot more fun! And for the measly price of NZ$1.29, you really can’t go wrong. Hats off to the developer, Aaron Koolen-Bourke, you’ve done an excellent job on TrapIt.
– littlegeek.co.nz
I love this game. Someone beat my OpenFeint high score please 201155 :p
And site admin: Why doesn’t Safari/Mobile Safari remember my login? Is this some Apple bug?
(ahmad has made 101 comments)
Looks great – kinda has shades of a game called Qix I used to play in the early 1980′s on my Atari!
Hope there will be an iPad version!
(nz_Ark has made 56 comments)
An iPad versdion would be great. The iPhone’s small(er) screen sometimes means you draw a line in the wrong place, especially when you are running out of time and trying to get as many points as possible to beat Ahmads score
I would have liked to have seen GameCenter implemented into this… not sure why devs use Openfeint and Plus+ when GameCenter is available.
(Daniel Burgess has made 613 comments)
Nz_ark: Qik! Thanks! It was doing my head in trying to remember which game this is a remake of!
(Steve Lawrence has made 648 comments)
Hi everyone, thanks so much for the great feedback and thanks to iPhonewzealand for the wonderful review!
@nz_Ark – At the moment there’s no plans for a native iPad version of TrapIt but we have received a couple of requests for one so we’ve definitely got that on our ‘possible’ update list! To do this would require repurposing all our art assets into HD and maybe some gameplay adjustments for the bigger screen, so needs careful consideration.
@Dan The reason we, and I think a lot of other devs use OpenFeint and Plus+ is that they offer a lot more in the way of features for both developers and players than GameCenter does. That said, it is almost a certainty that GameCenter will be added to TrapIt in our first update. When that is I cant promise but hopefully within a few weeks time.
If anyone is interested in keeping abreast of TrapIt’s continued development or just finding out more about it and us, feel free to follow our blog
Again, thanks very much everyone!
Aaron
(Little Geek has made 2 comments)
Hi everyone. Just a quick note that TrapIt v 1.1 has hit the iTunes Store and it now has the much requested Game Center support. Also:
* Added new achievement “Trapit Veteran” for reaching level 15.
* Vibration added for devices that support it.
* TrapIt will pause and prompt for resume if you switch back to it on iOS versions that support multitasking.
* Added custom achievement notifications.
* New background added.
* TrapIt will log you into the leaderboards automatically.
* Instructions updated with an overview screen.
* Fixed bug where one achievement wasn’t being awarded correctly.
Get it here: http://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/trapit/id426659416?mt=8
Cheers
(Little Geek has made 2 comments)