I was a fan of TouchArcade long before I was a writer here, and one of my favorite of the more recent regular features is Shaun’s Update Mondays posts. The weird thing is, the updates themselves aren’t even why I look forward to it every week. Rather, it’s because I think Shaun’s a funny dude and I just enjoy reading his descriptions of each update. More specifically, I need to know what game he decides to give the coveted Update Mondays Most Spider-Mans Of The Week Award to. Is it going to be Spider-Man Unlimited (Free) again? (I mean, it does get a lot of Spider-Mans.) Or will it be something completely random? Well, I think I may have found a good future candidate. I’m talking about A Small Game’s Hanger World (Free), and it’s packed full of all kinds of Spider-Mans slinging themselves this way and that. As it turns out, it’s also a really, really fun game.

Actually, a good way to describe the game would be “Spider-Man meets Super Meat Boy”. (Try saying that ten times fast. No, twenty. We’ll wait.) You play as a number of differently colored stick figures who have the ability to shoot rope from their hands. Once a rope hits something (usually the ceiling) you’ll be at the mercy of some rather cartoony physics as you swing wildly across the screen. The goal, then, is to make it to the end of each level in one piece. Or any number of pieces, really. Just make sure you still have a head and some shoulders by the end (which is good advice in real life as well).

So yeah, you’re probably gonna lose some limbs along the way. That’s okay, though, because it’s part of the charm of the game. Each level is packed with all kinds of hazards, from saws and propellers to lasers and giant mouth monsters. Catch one at the wrong angle (or any angle), and you can say goodbye to the bottom half of your right leg. It can be pretty hilarious seeing your poor little dude frantically swinging to the exit with not much more than an arm or two, but it’s also kind of a clever life system, with body parts standing in for hearts (which, I realize, is also technically a body part). It’s kind of like reverse hangman in that way, since you’re subtracting parts with every mistake instead of adding them. (Also, different type of hanging.)

The controls work really well, with a caveat or two. The game uses on-screen buttons, with left/right controls on the left and a rope button on the right. The hit boxes on them feel pretty good and I basically never had any issues, but I do wish you had the option to customize them a bit. Slide ‘em around, enlarge ‘em, swap screen sides, that sorta thing. My biggest wish, though, would be an option to trigger the rope by holding its button down and letting go to release the rope. As it is now, one button press shoots the rope out and another button press releases it. It works, but I find myself wondering if it would work better my (slightly simpler) way. Maybe they tested that and it didn’t work so well. Who knows!

Progression-wise, the game is stage based with 54 short levels that get more difficult as you go along (and more coming in the future, supposedly). Further, each level has three coins to collect, which basically amounts to a traditional three-star system. Why coins and not stars, then? Well, because you can spend the coins on “rewards" in the game, and stars are far, far too big and hot to be used as currency. The rewards are fun little cosmetic extras like alien blood and different ropes, but the coins also unlock a rad speedrun mode that sees you racing through a short series of levels as quickly as possible (with Game Center leaderboards, of course).

While doing a bit of research for Hanger World, I found a TA Plays video from three years ago for the original game Hanger (Free). Despite declaring myself a Big Touch Arcade Fan in the opening paragraph, I don’t actually remember that video or the game at all. (Apparently I wasn’t willing to spend an entire dollar on it at the time, and then it was lost forever.) The people in our forums who weren’t cheap bastards like me seemed to quite enjoy it, though, and after now playing both I can happily say that the sequel is equally as absurdly fun–and quite a bit slicker all around. Plus it’s free (apparently with ads, though they were so light I didn’t even notice any), with a one-time ad-removal IAP option, so there’s literally no excuse this time. Metaphorical celebratory vermouth, anyone?