Match Orbs To Unlock Powers In Trollum
Trollum ($1.99) by Fugitive Pixel is kind of like Dance Dance Revolution meets Magic: The Gathering. Generally, you wouldn’t think such games would go together, but Trollum makes it work.
A left and right slider control moves elemental power buttons from side to side. Orbs will cascade toward the buttons, and it’s your job to match the like pairs. Doing so will charge your power for that particular element.
A sword orb will fall, representing an attack, and a shield orb grants defense. Ideally, you would match either with a button that is full. Doing so will unleash a golem to do your bidding (attacking or defending).
Grabbing the glowing orbs will power up your catapult, which you can use to really damage the enemy army.
The story is a bit confusing. You play as an alchemy student, Angkleros, who is trying to stop the evil Berila from the land of Gerifaltia. Throw in a whole host of other made-up fantasy names for just about any noun on top of that, and you have the story.
An encyclopedia is offered on the home page, which you would expect to list all of the players. Unfortunately, it only holds the pictures you unlock from different levels.
But knowing everything about the story doesn’t affect gameplay in the least. The game still boils down to the fun of matching the elemental orbs and using them to smite the enemy.
The graphics could use some work. Text would often appear to the side of where it should go. While the armies at the top of the screen don’t really affect your actual game, it’d still be nice if they were more integral to the gameplay.
Currently, they’re not very big to begin with (even magnified on an iPad), and your focus is on trying to match the orbs at the bottom of the screen.
This game definitely treads new ground, and I think it works. Overall, this is a welcome change to the standard fare of iOS RPGs. Perhaps a big update will bring it even closer to perfection.
