Games in the App Store. They are a dime a dozen… well actually probably more like a dime a dozen dozen, but you get the idea. So, as you can imagine, its relatively easy for a good one to get lost in the endless sea of meh. The aim of this post is to prevent such a, thing from happening to a game I stumbled upon over the weekend, “The Golden Arrow”.
This little gem presents as your typical “endless runner,” with the object being to run from “x” until you mess up and die in some way, achieving the highest score possible. Its rendered in “8 bit,” which provides a certain, retro feel to the game that made it nice. What makes this particular game special though, is the storied aspect of it. From the start of the game you are presented as a blue monster with white fir, endlessly running from what appears to be monster hunters. As you reach certain distance milestones, you will unlock scrolls telling a story. I won’t go into detail about the actual story, as I don’t want to spoil it, but I found it very compelling and well delivered.
All day, I found myself going back to the game to try and unlock the next scroll, then upon achieving a new one, intentionally ending my run so that I might read the next little bit of the story. This is odd behavior for someone playing a game of this type, but to me at least, the story was far more compelling than the actually running aspect. I suspect that was kind of the point. There are thirty scrolls in all, gradually getting harder and harder to achieve, but also dragging you deeper and deeper into the story, eventually reaching a conclusion that tied the game together quite well.
I truly enjoyed playing this game. I feel like I absolutely got my moneys worth, and highly recommend it to anyone who likes a good story and isn’t afraid to work for it a little bit. You can find “The Golden Arrow” in the App Store here, for 99 cents. Go get it.
