iPhone Review – Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor

Developer/Publisher: Tiger Style
Genre: Adventure, Puzzler
Price: $2.99
Verdict: One of the most original games to hit the App Store
Pros: Great graphics, 4 modes of play, Facebook Connect
Cons: Story’s not deep enough, makes you itchy

This game, a game in which you play and maneuver such a small entity: a spider, has been making some big waves in the iTunes App Store. Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor is not a match three gem game. It is not a shooter with awkward controls. It is not another tower defense strategy. Spider is the most original game available for the iPhone and iPod Touch at the moment.

In Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, you control a tiny spider. You’ve come upon a house. And, as all spiders do, you decide to go inside and make yourself at home. While in the house, you come across some interesting relics of the house’s past inhabitants. These items tell a story and perhaps a secret about Bryce Manor. Each room you visit is filled with various other insects that you can trap in your web and eat.

Controls in this game are simple and function very well. To walk, just place a finger on the screen in the direction you’d like to go. The spider will walk over obstacles, up walls and even across ceilings. Jumping is accomplished by swiping a finger across the screen in the direction you want to jump. To make a web, first, tap the spider to set a silken anchor. Then, swipe to jump to another surface. Your spider only has a limited amount of silk to use before he or she runs out. To be able to make more silk you’ll need to form a web and capture some of the delicious insects you see flying around. If you find yourself completely out of silk, you’ve got a very limited time before you curl up and die. The lessen here is feed! Webs will form when strands of silk make a geometric shape. You can create a variety of webs in many configurations ranging from small triangles to large polygons. On occasion it’s easy to tap the spider when you don’t really mean to just before a jump. This of course sets an anchor and the spider unintentionally draws a silk line. Just be careful and look before you leap.

In the beginning, the insects are easy to capture and you have plenty of silk in reserve. As the levels progress, you’ll find your spider has less silk and the areas to spin your webs become more complicated and confined, or in some cases, so open that the strand of silk will not reach across the gap without breaking. This is where some strategy and puzzle solving skills come into play. To be able to go from room to room, level to level, you’ll need to open up a exit point by trapping and eating a certain amount of bugs. You can then stay behind to clear the room for more points. Some rooms even have hidden areas you can discover by crawling over every surface. Points can be multiplied by jumping from web to web and never touching the floor. There are some surfaces, like shiny or wet metals that little spider legs can’t grasp on to. You’ll tumble right off onto the floor. Webs and silk also can not stick to these surfaces.

An additional challenge to Spider is given in the variations of the bugs you’ll encounter. There are small, fast green bugs, lazy and easy-to-catch flies. Moths must be stirred from their resting spot and then trapped. If you can find a light switch and turn on a bulb, the moths will fly right to it making it easier to catch them with a minimal amount of silk. Hornets can not be caught in webs. They must be tackled to a surface and eaten right away. These are by far the most fun insects to come upon. It’s rather thrilling to pounce on them and then hear the crunch! Mosquitoes are another story. Once the spider comes near to them they’ll run away in all different directions. It’s best to take care of them last as once you have a network of webs, you can just coax them to their doom. Most of the insects can fly and are therefore impervious to the surfaces you have to stick too. This can become very frustrating, especially in the case of the mosquitoes.

Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor contains 28 levels. And once you’ve beaten the game, 3 additional modes of play open up, Feeding Frenzy, Precision and Hunger mode. The game includes Facebook Connect so you can post your score on your Facebook page and compete with friends. There are even achievements to complete. All of this combined makes for massive replay value. The graphics are hand drawn adding a lot of charm to an already charming game. It’s pleasant yet dingy and dark, but that is how an old, abandoned house is. The color scheme gives you the feeling of a Fall chill. The backgrounds are dreamy and there is a lot of detail in the foregrounds that the spider is climbing over. You do have the option to listen to your own iPod music as you play but I doubt you’ll want to.

For about a week before playing Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, I’d heard and read about how original and interesting the game was, that there was a mystery narrative told throughout the game. So as I was playing the game, I kept waiting for this mysterious mystery to happen, and before I knew it, I’d beaten the game. While there is an underlying tale woven throughout the game, that you’ll uncover as you progress, in no way is it super mysterious or does it even really make you realize it’s a narrative. There are little photos and some interactive objects in the game but they don’t play any big role in the story or the gameplay so I’m not totally sure why they’re there. But since this game really is so original and fresh, in fact, it’s Tiger Style’s first game, I’m willing to forgive the lack of depth in the narrative, but I’d be ecstatic if a future update added more interactive narrative pieces. Heck, I’d even pay for it in a totally separate game!

Even without the storyline, Spider is inventive and worth owning if you’re sick of all the typical game clutter in the App Store. Even if you’re terrible at geometry, chances are if you jump around enough, you’ll create a web somehow. There were times that I caught myself thinking, oh, god- ew! It’s a spider! So if you’re arachnophobic, you’ll want to get that hypnosis treatment and overcome it. There’s no excuse not to play this game.