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.

PikGem dispenses with a storyline, not even mentioning the name of the rotund, cutesy character who - according only to the game’s website - is called Gulpy. Your mission? To run around the grid-based level collecting up dots while avoiding or shooting monsters. All very Pac-Man, esque really. There’s no explanation as to why Gulpy needs to do this, but I can’t really see anyone being too bothered about the lack of gripping narrative. What you see is certainly what you get with PikGem.

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.