With thousands of apps in the Apple App store, choosing
the right one that best suits your needs can sometimes be a bit overwhelming.
That’s especially true if you’re looking for a new game or app to kill some of
your free time. For instance, the number of games in the platform genre of the
app store offers a huge number of games from basic jumper styles to graphics
heavy ones.
One particular app competing in this genre is Pinoy-made
Jump For Your Life by Yes Please Games. The game features Pudgy McEaton, an
obese adventurer that wants to prove to the world that he can be good at what
he does despite his size. Jump For Your Life is set in an old dungeon where
Pudgy tries to collect as much treasure as he can. Due to the fragile nature of
the place, Pudgy needs to jump off from one platform to another because the
ground cannot old his weight for a long amount of time. The dungeon is also
filled with traps and other dangers that he must avoid on his journey.
I fiddled with the game and put all my observations in
this review to help any iPhone owners who are planning to get a new game to
kill some boring moments.
USER INTERFACE,
DESIGN and GAMEPLAY
The Game’s UI is flat and cartoony. I did like the design
of the character (Pudgy) but in my opinion, the rest of the game needs a bit of
improvement when it comes to graphic design. Moreover, the UI is generally
responsive, although I did experience a bit of lag whenever my phone tries to
connect to Apple’s Game Center when syncing game details with my Apple account.
Gameplay is challenging because you have to press a
couple of buttons all at the same time in order to progress in the game unlike
some games where you just need to tap the screen all throughout to control your
character. Game controls were also very straightforward and intuitive
GAME DEPTH and
SPECIAL FEATURES
Although the game developers have imagined a back story
for Jump For Your Life, this story isn’t that apparent when you’re playing the
game. In fact I didn’t know that the character had a name not until I’ve read
the game description on iTunes the second time. However, there’s a sound effect
in the game that tells the player that they are in somewhat “Indiana Jones” /
“Lara Croft” type of game where they need to get precious items and survive
deadly traps along the way.
JFYL also features an easy share functionality allowing
users to connect their JFYL account to Facebook and Twitter and share their
achievements with their friends. Moreover, the game connects to Apple’s Game
Center and updates your stats in the leaderboards.
The game also allows in-app purchases in case you’re
willing to spend some money to get some features right off the bat. Otherwise,
you can just trade in the gems you’ve collected in the game to get the features
you want.
THE VERDICT
After playing the game for a little over a week, I can
say that Jump For Your Life is really interesting and very promising, though it
needs a few tweaks. I’m giving JFYL plus points for its simple and easy
gameplay as well as its integration with various social media channels.
However, it lacks game objectives to motivate users to
keep playing. In addition to these objectives, it would’ve also been nice if
the developers would provide regular updates to users and probably a new unlock
ability with every update. Improving the graphics can also help in the future
in order to keep the game interesting.
With all things said, Jump For Your Life isn’t what we
call a killer app (at least not yet), nevertheless it’s something worth
checking out. And oh, did we say it’s made by a Filipino team? If you’re
interested in downloading and playing the game you can grab it from the iTunes
app store for free or head to Yes Please Games’ website using this link.
