Reviews - schtolteheim

The flashy graphics aren't easy on the eyes. Having these crass light sources within the dark environment was a bad choice, and no considerate game designer should have done this.

Sadly gameplay isn't as clever as expected. Level designs are mundane and puzzle solutions are predictable.
The game doesn't stress your brain, but your patience, it is quite the bore.
Several elements were borrowed from older games, but the execution is inferior.
Virtually nothing new has been established here.

To be serious this game isn't worth more than 1.50$
The experience was on par with freeware flash games.

This is a fantastically inventive puzzle game.
There really hasn't been made anything like it before.

The basic idea seems like an inversion of "Boulder Dash", which means the dig-able soil is not static but instead affected by gravity. As you play you will realize the immense possibilities of these mechanics. You will need to build complex structures to your aid, and demolish them in turn to murderous effect(because although the name is TrapThem, you mainly just SquishEm). One could say it puts "Red Faction's" "GeoMod" to shame, if the meagre graphics are ignored.

The stages are devided into 3 types: purely cerebral tasks, reaction tests and amalgamations of both; with the reaction tests at times being unattractive for pure puzzle-lovers.

I have played every stage and can account for the quality of their design. The game demands both creativity and intellect in great amounts(as well as finger-skills, which isn't as remarkable though). Gameplay doesn't go stale at any time, seemingly familiar looking challenges prove to be fresh just by means of a minor twist or added restrictions. Later stages will easily make you invest an hour at least, and a few are likely to make you despair for a while; but they all are solvable, I promise.
It needs to be said that overcoming these positively "impossible" preconditions will fill you with a deep sense of satisfaction; at one point when all the established core-techniques fail to solve the problem you will be led to utilize your environments in such ludicrous ways that you wouldn't deem them feasible in theory, you have to try.
This is something you cannot have with the wishy-washy "Portal" games for instance, which made "TrapThem" the more enjoyable experience for me.

So the game is majorly taxing, which is all a logic-enthusiast could wish for. But even more importantly, the game demonstrates a uniqueness highly uncommon today, it isn't derivative in the least.

"TrapThem" may be the greatest puzzle-sensation since "DROD".