I have to admit when I first saw Wheeler’s Treasure in screenshots online, I knew I wanted to get the chance to play around with it, the artwork looked great and the idea behind it was different enough from other games to make it unique.
Discover WHEELER’S TREASURE, a spectacular pirate world filled with jungles, treasures, ghosts and more! Follow the Cursed Wheel of The Lost Pirate Captain Wheeler through endless randomly generated challenges. Jump over pits, grab the treasure and hang on to your wheel as you fly down steep hills and splash into hazards. Sixteen unique items are scattered throughout the world for you to collect, with each one bringing new abilities. Avoid dangerous skeletons, bats and ghosts, dodge incoming cannonballs, and protect your treasure from cunning crows!
The Cursed Wheel is destructible, so watch out! Roll into lava and it’ll burn. Get hit by cannonballs and you’ll find your wheel pieces go flying. Lose all your pieces and it’s over!
Packed with Piratey Features
✓ Online highscores, achievements and more using OpenFeint
✓ Randomly generated world, no two play-throughs will ever be the same!
✓ Sixteen swashbuckling items to discover in game, each item granting a unique ability
✓ Roll past your friends’ Tombstones to beat their scores!
✓ Beautiful 2D and 3D graphics from lush jungles to burning volcanic lands and more
✓ Amazing Piratey music in five unique soundtracks!
✓ Splashing water! Burning lava! Sinking quicksand!
✓ Unlock 3D scenes that begin to tell the story of WHEELER’S TREASUREContinuous updates to be had!
✓ New Items and Treasures you can use to tackle your enemies and surpass your friends
✓ New Scenes to unlock and collect!
✓ New Game Modes to play!
The idea behind the game is that you follow and push along what is called “The Cursed Wheel of The Lost Pirate Captain Wheeler” through randomly generated levels. It may sound simple, but it is far from it. You must try and dodge or destroy skeleton pirates, bats, birds and more to keep your own health up while trying to get the wheel as far through the level as possible.
Controls take a bit of getting used to, but the tutorial at the beginning really helps you out there. Jumping around is as simple as flicking your finger up across the screen towards where you want to jump to. While in the bottom left of the screen you can use your special item such as the hook.
Not only that though, your wheel can be knocked apart by flying cannonballs, fireballs and more. Throughout the levels there are coins and gems to collect, these can be used to repair your wheel when it gets damaged.
The quickest way to get around is to stay inside the wheel while it rolls along, but this isn’t always the safest method of play, sometimes not only will it be easier outside of the wheel, there will be times when you fall out due to the damage that the wheel has had. During the game you will come across treasures which you collect, these can then be used on your character, for example the hook is one of my favourites, as this allows you to press on the hook button in the bottom left and then grab onto the wheel, it keeps you attached to it and can help give the wheel momentum to move along.
There are many other treasure to be found in the game that I won’t spoil here. The game judges how far you have got the wheel in Yarrds, get it? It is a pirate based game you fool! Anyway, the game uses the Open Feint system for scoreboards and achievements, but Wheeler’s Treasure goes that little bit further and integrates gravestones of your friends that you can go past in the game. These represent how far your friend has managed to get in the levels and gives you something to push towards and past.
Graphic wise the game is great, it has a 2D/3D mix to it and the artwork as I mentioned at the beginning is excellent, from a personal viewpoint I’d love to see the company try a platform based game in the same art style as this as I think it would work well and look fantastic. There is no slow down in the game even when you are wheeling around the levels at high speed during some points so all credit to the developers there. Music is also excellent with varied tunes all of a piratey like nature, sound is decent too though nothing outstanding.
So overall a very good game, one that shows not only a lot of polish, but a lot of thought behind it as well as a great design. The game is a lot of fun and the fact that it has integrated Open Feint so well is credit to the developers. Wheeler’s Treasure is a fun game and not only that, it is cheap too! The developers have also stated that they will be releasing a number of updates for the game over the next few months so watch out for them.
iTunes Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wheelers-treasure/id335953311?mt=8
Conclusion
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Great design, lots of polish, fun, achievements | Controls can be fiddly |
| Verdict | Good fun |
| Rating |
I purchased this game when it first came out. The music and graphics are quite good, but the gameplay becomes repetitive quickly. Kids will love the pick-up-and-play casual nature of it.
I hope they improve on the game, perhaps add some adventure elements or a story arc.
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