The original Doodle Jump [99¢] hit the App Store in early 2009, and before the rise of Angry Birds was the undisputed king of casual gaming. The doodler has been spotted on stage at Lady Gaga concerts, and the game has even been mentioned on sitcoms as well as seen on late night talk shows. Doodle Jump was also amongst the first of the true indie success stories, created entirely by two brothers who went on to enjoy millions of downloads of the game.
The gameplay itself is ridiculously simple, and is controlled entirely by tilting, and jumping from platform to platform. Over time, and through various updates, all sorts of different power-ups, enemies, and graphical skins were also thrown into the mix. Doodle Jump was also one of the first game to feature online leader boards displayed in game by little hash marks along the side as you made your ascent, a feature that is now practically standard in any vertical jumper.
When the iPad was released, we continually quizzed developer Lima Sky for when we’d see a Doodle Jump on the big screen, and were met with responses regarding how they didn’t want to just put Doodle Jump on the iPad, they wanted to do something special. Well, it turns out that all that special stuff is going to be part of an upcoming sequel, tentatively titled Doodle Jump 2.
So Doodle Jump for iPad [$2.99] is basically exactly what it sounds like: Doodle Jump on the iPad. Playing the game feels a little different since you can see so much more of the game world, and obviously playing a tilt-based game on the iPad is vastly different from the iPhone. The extra heft of the device makes playing feel a little clunky in comparison, but you quickly get used to it. Also, the directional shooting functionality is a little tricky because of the larger screen, but if you can’t get a handle on that it’s easy enough to turn off in the options.
If you love Doodle Jump, and want it on your iPad, now you can without needing to run the game with pixel doubling. Doodle Jump is still one of my favorite games, and is undoubtedly a true App Store classic, but after this kind of wait I was really hoping for more on the iPad than a (currently) exclusive race-centric theme for the multiplayer mode.
Regardless, the thought of Doodle Jump 2 has me really excited.
