If Pac-Man had a crack PR team for an image overhaul and designers to bring him into three dimensions, the result might look something like PikGem. Pikgem is from Sébastien D’heeger of Dconcept, a French independent game developer. It’s a colorful family game based on simple arcade action and the inherent need for nabbing a high score.

You control Gulpy, a rotund cartoon character with a knack for backflips and shooting stars from his hands. The object of the game is to collect a series of dots in each level, avoiding monsters and obstacles along the way. Once you have all the dots, a teleport square opens up and you can continue to the next level. You have limited ammo to shoot monsters, and limited lives to beat the game, so a careful eye and patience are paramount to success.

Gameplay

The game does seem like a modern Pac-Man, mainly due to the dot consumption. You travel across a grid-like playing field that often changes elevation and contains gaps to fall down. You can easily move in all directions outside of diagonal, and jump over or shoot enemies to make them disappear.The monsters are varied in their actions: some run in a set path, some move randomly, some are invincible and some chase you. You can shoot most of the enemies with your stars and then touch them to turn them into score bonuses, or you can otherwise hit power-ups that will kill all the enemies or freeze them.

My biggest struggle with the gameplay was changing directions. It seemed inconsistent in such that sometimes you could turn 180 degrees in one spot, but other times you would move to the adjacent square. I died several times by falling into pits due to this turning issue.

Not being able to control your jumps once in the air left created another issue for me. If a monster moved into the square below you while landing, you had no alternative but to lose a life. The game did have a good use of shooting though, as you can often save yourself from certain death while moving onto a square the same time as a monster.

The most enjoyable levels for me were the bonus rounds. A timer ticks down as you race to collect all the score icons on a level, no dots included. This race against the clock gave a stirring sense of urgency that made the level more challenging than the main meat of the game.

I also liked the powerups such as the rocket and the mine cart. These items give your character temporary invincibility and a speed boost in order to clean the dots out of a level sooner. I kept an eye out for any item boosts such as these in every level, as they can often be lifesavers and shake up the standard walk-and-gather formula.

Style

PikGem has clean cartoony graphics that should appeal to children and children at heart. The animations are smooth, though Gulpy’s feet don’t seem to match his pace walking around a level. And another odd stylistic choice was the fact that moving platforms don’t actually bring you with them. If you stand still, a platform will slip out from under your feet. You have to actually move your character with the platform.

One stylistic element I had trouble with was the dots and items sitting in an elevated position. Often times it’s difficult to tell if they’re a square down from your current position or resting in the air, as their are no shadows on the ground to indicate the former or latter.

The game offers a top down view in addition to its 3/4 view. I enjoyed this visual change for a while, but trying to nab the elevated dots became even more difficult in this layout.

Story

There’s no real story to this game as it’s a simple arcade platformer. You’re Gulpy and you have a burning desire to collect dots across sixty different levels. Why ask why?

Everything Else

PikGem is easy. I’m not going to mark this as a negative, because the target audience might have a bit more trouble with it than I did. I did get “game over” a few times as I traversed the game’s sixty levels, but you can start right back on the level you died on (though your score is reset). I had a few good runs throughout and nailed a high score of almost 200,000 with all said and done.

I found the music to be repetitive, but otherwise the sound effects were pleasant as dots were collected and mosters gave chase.

You can purchase PikGem directly from Dconcept’s website, though I’m hesitant to give it a glowing purchase recommendation with it’s $20/ €16.00 price point. While the game is sure to give a couple hours of entertainment, it seems like a high price these days when you can snag much longer and engrossing games for the same price.

The game feels best for kids. So if you’re looking for something light-hearted, violence-free and enjoyable to hit high scores for the wee ones, then it might be your kind of game.

[The developer/publisher of this game gave DIYgamer.com a free copy for review purposes. This, in no way, affected the outcome of the review]