These days, Skylanders is one of Activision’s most important franchises and follows Call of Duty in the amount of revenue it brings in for the company. Despite this, I encounter confused faces more often than expected from friends and acquaintances when I mention the series. Sometimes they don’t understand the appeal when I explain the concept to them and those are the ones failing to embrace their inner child. Placing a toy figure on a glowing portal then getting to play as that character? My generation would have our 90s kids’ minds blown if Skylanders came out during our childhoods. But with the upcoming new game being the fourth annual release, how will Toys for Bob, the studio that created Skylanders, keep it interesting? As Star Wars’ Admiral Ackbar once said, “It’s a trap.”
Skylanders: Trap Team receives its namesake from the Trap Masters, new Skylanders figures that coincide with the game. These new heroes bring this year’s most significant gameplay mechanic: trapping major villains. When a level’s boss villain is a defeated, the player has a choice to either trap him to then fight for good or pass to collect a bounty of in-game currency. In order to make the act of trapping a physical interactive action, the new portal peripheral receives the most significant change in the history of the franchise via the addition of both a hexagonal slot and speaker on the front. Traps are new, key-shaped Skylanders toys that are placed into the new slot to initiate capture. Since the major villains are elemental, the trap used must coincide with the specific element of the enemy you are trapping.
You are able to switch from playing as your Skylander character to any captured villains but only for a limited amount of time before a cool down period. This is to maintain balance since villains are more powerful than Skylanders. When you’re not playing as a trapped villain, he returns into the trap and occasionally speaks dialogue from the portal’s speaker with a light illuminating the transparent physical trap toy in sync. A cool audio trick involves the yell of an inserted trap’s villain being emitted from the portal then the television and vice versa when switching back. I found the new features of the new Traptanium Portal take another step forward in bringing life to the toys.
First, I was given the fifth level of Skylander: Trap Team, titled Chef Zepplin, to play. The chapter opened up with an airship on-rails shooting sequence similar to what I played in 2013’s SWAP Force. Once that was over with, I was eased into the series’ signature brawling action as I quickly took down several grunt-level enemies. Traversing the stage involved light platforming thanks to the addition of jumping last year. Also returning are some puzzle types including ones requiring the player to push blocks into the correct places to move on. A new mini-game that caught my attention was the Skystones Smash card game that plays like a simplified Yu-Gi-Oh. Each player has heart points and can wear away at the opponent’s health by defeating any enemy monster cards or attacking directly if there are no opposing monsters on the field. Next I played the non-campaign Kaos Challenge Mode that plays like a basic tower defense game. Before a round starts, you are allowed to set up turrets at certain spots to aid in preventing enemies from reaching a chest with a villain trapped inside. The new mini-games, platforming sequences, and puzzles help add variety to Trap Team’s gameplay and hopefully will keep more experienced Skylanders players entertained.
After my hands-on time, I had the opportunity to tour Toys for Bob and talk to staff members in the various departments. It certainly was not what I expected to see when I thought of the typical video game studio. Toys for Bob rests inside an abandoned air force hangar with one half featuring a tiki theme and the other containing a workplace designed in the form of a pirate ship. The whole place gave off a laidback vibe that probably encourages the creative juices flowing in the minds behind Skylanders. Everybody I chatted with, whether they work on the animation, art, audio, tech, or writing, were genuinely excited about the franchise and had a dedication to making each year’s game better than the next. But most importantly, everybody at Toys for Bob remembers to take a step back and look at the world from a kid’s perspective so they can continue to wow their young fans. The most evident example came from talking with Senior Engineer Robert Leyland, who worked heavily on creating the portal peripherals. He discussed how adults often think nothing of the NFC technology used in recognizing the toys in the game but that for kids, it’s magic. Plus, if a kid goes on to ask, “How does that work?” and seeks out to learn the engineering behind Skylanders, Leyland feels that’s when the studio truly wins. And as someone who made it to the state science fair as a teenager with a project based on Beyblade, a popular 00s toy, I couldn’t disagree with his sentiment. With developers that caring of their creation, it’s no coincidence that Skylanders still remains popular and Trap Team looks to keep their audience amazed.