In this day and age, we make a lot of assumptions in video games. Red potions give you health, there’s always a lava level regardless of the regional volcanic (or lack thereof) climate, and coins are just everywhere. Incredible Jack opens with a weirdly elaborate setting where they specifically and thoroughly explain why there’s coins everywhere- It turns out it’s a deliberate bread crumb trail of gold left behind to lead you to your yellow-skinned Simpson-like kidnapped family of “Timbergrotes"? It’s a strange first taste, as that isn’t really something anyone thinks about. Maybe I’m just to entrenched in video games that this is all just normal to me, but does anyone find their immersion broken when playing a Mario game over the logistics of there being coins everywhere? It’s just a trope that we take for granted, and attempting to explain the how’s and why’s just comes off as very awkward.
But, anyway, Incredible Jack seems like a fairly competent platformer. It controls well, with two virtual buttons for moving left or right along with a single button for jumping. Everything else in the world you interact with either by stopping on, jumping up into, or bumping in to. It’s pretty standard stuff that really requires no explanation. The game has a neat almost Donkey Kong Country-ish pre-rendered art style, and the way you interact with all sorts of physics-based obstacles for some light physics puzzling is pretty fun. You can see quite a bit of what I’m talking about in the trailer:
Incredible Jack will be available on the US App Store tonight at 11:00 PM Eastern, or potentially way earlier if you’re in a region east of us. Check out the forums, where initial impressions are pretty similar to mine in that while Incredible Jack doesn’t seem to bring much new to the table, it’s still a good example of a very “classic" platformer.
International App Store Link: Incredible Jack, 99¢
