Mummy’s Treasure Review – iPhone Puzzle Game
Chaper 1 Level Select Screen
Mummy’s Treasure is a fun puzzle game that just hit the app store on February 2nd making it the latest addition to the already impressive lineup from Chillingo. These are the guys that brought you other great puzzlers (or bought the companies that made them) like Cut the Rope, Helsing’s Fire, and of course the smash-hit shooter Minigore and Angry Birds.
If you are familiar with these games (and the countless others) from Chillingo, you know they are a great game studio that releases a lot of quality apps.
The gameplay of Mummy’s Treasure begins very simply. The first few levels are very basic, and it won’t be long before you are thinking to yourself, “I hope this gets better”. Don’t worry, it does. What starts out simple, like many puzzlers, soon becomes quite complex. The game is split into 3 chapters of 20 levels each. Chapter 1 isn’t too tough, chapter 2 is the challenging intermediate level, and chapter 3 will really make you think. Luckily, you can skip any level you get stuck on.
It begins with simple mechanics. Your objective is to clear all of the mummies from the stage without losing any of the gold. In order to clear them out, you smash the stone blocks out from under the mummies and not from under the gold. Too easy. But then they introduce skeletons. And then rolling coins. And then optional stone blocks that you may or may not need to clear in order to solve the puzzle. Suddenly the solution is not so obvious any more. As if that wasn’t enough, they really make you think once they change all of the rules of physics you and I have come to rely on every day and introduced four-way gravity!
Yep, 3-way gravity in this pic.
For example, in the screenshot to the right, the mummy block on the right is turned on its side. If you smash the stone block to the left of it trying to remove the mummy block from the screen it would “fall” to the left and knock your precious gold block off the screen! It’s easy to understand, but can be very tricky on the harder levels.
After each level, you get to see your score. Losing gold is not an option, you must save it all to pass the stage. You get bonus points if you can find all of the hidden gems, solve it quickly (it’s timed), and get a score of par or better (based on your number of moves). The one big complaint I had about the game is how difficult it is to tap on the gems when you find them. They fly off the screen and I would tap on them 3 or 4 or 5 times before I would finally get it.
Overall, Mummy’s Treasure really is a lot of fun. It isn’t revolutionary, it isn’t amazing, but it is still a lot of fun. I love puzzle games like this that make you think beyond the obvious (hence, a puzzle). :Shift: did a good job of making you think “outside the box”, and this game does it very well too, but with a more polished game environment and better physics. If you like physics puzzlers, and enjoy a challenge, you will really enjoy this game, and as or right now, it’s perfectly priced at that sweet .99 cent spot.
Mummys Treasure – Chillingo Ltd
