Bounce Trap: A mindless fun iPhone game, emphasis on “mindless”
Some of the newer iPhone games are figuring out how to best use the device’s accelerometer and multi-touch capabilities. Bounce Trap is not one of those games.
That isn’t to say it’s not fun — it is — just in a different, more mindless way. Here’s the premise: You get 50 colorful balls to fill up a set number of holes on any level. You must fill all of the holes before you life expires. To deploy the balls to the areas with the holes you want to hit, you simply tap the iPhone’s screen anywhere and they will fall down. You get points for making the ball ricochet off other balls already set in place, among other things. (It’s best to watch the video below to get a sense of how to play.)
The key part of the above description is that you can touch the screen anywhere. There is really not much skill involved in Bounce Trap. Sure, you’ll be better at it if you can time when the balls should fall correctly, but it’s pretty simple. I finished half of the 35 levels in a relatively short amount of time without coming close to losing once.
While games like Dr. Awesome and Tap Tap Dance show off the iPhone’s more advanced gaming capabilities by using accelerometer and multi-touch controls, respectively, Bounce Trap shows off the fact that the iPhone has a touch screen. Ho-hum.
Really, I’d say you could play this game on any phone or device, except that every time I start it I get a low-memory warning. I’ve used dozens of iPhone apps and I rarely see that message, let alone nearly every time I start a game. Restarting your iPhone corrects this some of the time, but this is hardly such an advanced game that such a step should be necessary.
Bounce Trap was pitched to me as pachinko (a Japanese gaming device) meets pinball. That seems fairly accurate. If you want some mindless fun and have $4.99 to drop in the App Store, you could do worse — but you could also probably do better.
Bounce Trap is made by the development house PlayScreen.
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About the Author, MG Siegler
MG Siegler writes about technology trends and new media for VentureBeat, with a focus on mobile topics, social elements and key news stories. Before that, MG wrote about technology on his blog, ParisLemon. Originally from Ohio, MG attended the University of Michigan where he studied film. He's previously lived in Los Angeles where he worked in Hollywood and in San Diego where he did web development. He now lives in San Francisco.