Game Reviews

TripTrap

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iOS
| TripTrap
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TripTrap
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iOS
| TripTrap

TripTrap isn't a game about goats, trolls, and the crossing of bridges. It's a puzzle game about getting a mouse to eat some cheese, all the while avoiding spikes, clockwork cats, and all manner of other obstacles.

It fits neatly into the App Store puzzle template, with bite-size levels split into different sections, a three-cheese rating system for your endeavours, with the morsels of dairy produce used to unlock the next chunk of the game.

It's fun in small doses, and there's nothing particularly wrong with it, but TripTrap never quite manages to ignite anything other than a vague smoulder of interest.

House of mouse

The mouse under your control sprints forward as soon as you tap the screen to start a level, swivelling around the various platforms that make up each challenge. A button on the right of the screen lets you leap between parallel ledges.

Each level has an exit and three lumps of cheese. Grab all the cheese before you make it to the exit and you've completed the level. Once you've got enough cheese in one section of the game you'll unlock the next batch of levels.

The challenges require you to think a little to make sure you don't accidentally end up on an irreversible path towards the exit before you've had a chance to snaffle up the blocks of cartoon cheese.

It's all well put together, and the animations in particular deserve praise. They make it feel like you're playing a classic cartoon, and the cheeky wave the mouse does as he escapes each level always raises a smile.

Mousy

But TripTrap's gentle learning curve and uninspired design don't live up to its presentation. There's no wow factor, no clever ideas, and nothing else to set it apart from the raft of other thinly sliced puzzle games that populate the App Store.

It's fun in small doses, but small doses are really all it offers. If you're looking for something with a bit more bite, or a game that'll really sink its claws into the part of your brain that controls compulsion, you're better off looking elsewhere.

TripTrap

A simple little puzzler, TripTrap never adds up to more than the sum of its pretty generic parts
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.