Have Fireball, Will Travel

Today we'll be taking a look at Solomon's Keep for the iProduct today, as this is a game I played religiously years ago while I was doing sea time in Alaska. SK is an RPG in the sense that it has the basic framework of a story and the player's character eventually gains infinite cosmic power when played far enough.

As of this posting, the game runs for almost nothing on iTunes (despite keeping the Lite version up), which presumably is because the developers are making their money off of in-game purchases, like Bribe Destiny and skins for different wizards.

This is good news for everyone who enjoys blowing up skeletons with fireballs, because that's what this game is all about. You start off a novice wizard, who is charged with defeating the dark necromancer Solomon Dark in his self-named Keep. You pick your magic, listen to Solomon gloat about how he is going to cut your face off and wear it like a mask, and then the killing begins. Your little blue wizard rambles through randomly- generated dungeon floors filled to the brim with reanimated skeletons, soldier skeletons, archer skeletons, magic skeletons, skeletons that are already on fire...

Seriously, fuck skeletons.

This game loves fucking skeletons, and I love making skeletons explode. There's a little bit more to the game than I'm letting on, though. As you rack up kills, you gain exp (obviously, I did say this was an RPG). Upon levelling, you have your pick of three random skill upgrades that range from casting a protective shield around yourself (remember, archer skeletons), to exploding in a screen-filling blast of flame, causing your magic bar to refill faster, or even increasing your celerity so you can more effectively backpedal away from gropey bone hands while your fireballs miss repeatedly.

Don't be fooled into thinking you have to stick with fire magic, either. You've got four choices for starting attack: the iconic exploding Fireball, Magic Missle to cast at the darkness, Frost Jet is my personal favorite, or you could go the Jedi route with Force Lightning.

You can master more than one of the starting skills and combine them for added devastation, or max a single one out and unlock unique boosts for each- all in the name of skeleton exploding, of course.

There are also gold drops, items, bosses and more final boss gloating to look forward to in Solomon's Keep, and the pacing guarantees you will grudgingly pause and put it back in your pocket to flush after sitting on the can for fifteen minutes "accidentally".

Essentially, if you're one of the people who maxed out their enchanting on Skyrim, then proceeded to enchant a suit of armor with -25% Destruction Magic Cost x4, you'll enjoyed the core concept of this game. Just imagine carrying a smaller, distilled version of that experience around in your pocket everywhere you go.

Now go out there and get it!