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‘Jump Jack’ Review – Jumping Jack Flash

TouchArcade Rating:

I’ve always felt the best action games have a certain underlying rhythm to them. In those games, levels are designed in such a way that the skilled player rarely has to stop, a sort of drumbeat of attack, jump, dash, and whatever other moves are in the character’s repertoire. Auto-runners pull back the curtain entirely, particularly the ones that have pre-designed levels. You have no choice but to move forward, and if you can’t keep the beat, the beat will beat you. There’s a purity to that concept that works well, so well that even mighty Mario has included the odd auto-run stage or two in his latest adventures. The more precisely the player has to match the designer’s beat, the more difficult the game becomes. Many games of this sort use a gentle curve to slowly nudge the player’s skill up bit by bit. Then there are games like Jump Jack ($0.99).

Jump Jack is one of those aforementioned auto-runners with pre-designed stages. There are 20 of them in total, spread across four worlds, though that distinction is more a matter of visual themes as opposed to marking any sort of shift in the gameplay. The premise of the game is that a young boy named Jack sees his sister get kidnapped during the night by robots. Donning his blanket cape and nothing more than his underpants, Jack sets out to battle the bots and bring his sister home. It’s a cute story, and I’m told it’s based on bedtime stories one of the developers tells his own son. That’s pretty adorable, but don’t let that lull you into a false sense of security. Apparently the Rossman family runs a tight ship, because Jump Jack is a pretty tough game nearly from the start.

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Jack’s got a few moves up his sleeve, and they would be more than enough were he not dedicated to his relentless pace. He can jump pretty well, shoot beams from his hand, and use his cape to deflect just about any kind of shot from lasers to missiles. If he charges up for a while, he can do an incredible super-jump that can carry him to just about any height in the game. On top of all that, he can catch serious air from bouncing off robot skulls. However, since Jack is quite insistent on running forward at all times, those moves are more like the vital steps in a dance of death. If you fail to do the correct moves at the correct time, poor Jack will be down before you know it.

That’s not to say that you must strictly adhere to a single path in each stage. There are various points where the stages branch into a high and low road, but whichever you choose, you must execute your moves precisely. Shoot the regular robots, except the ones you need as stepping stones. Reflect the lasers back at the shooting bots, but mind that you don’t need to bounce off of them, too. Block the missiles the flying robots shoot, and be careful not to jump on the spiky heads of the heavy bots. Shoot the glass, bounce off the head, reflect the beams, jump, jump, and jump some more. You get three chances to make a mistake on each stage, and while that seems like a lot, it’s easy for those precious hit points to melt away in a flash, sending you right back to the start. Jack’s got unlimited lives, but you’ll lose precious points from your score for every death.

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Fortunately, the stages aren’t terribly long. Once you nail down the patterns, they rarely last more than a minute or so, if that. Since they basically come down to memorizing layouts and executing the sequence of moves correctly, any tenacious player should be able to get through on the lower difficulty settings eventually. The Retro Hard mode is a whole other ball of wax. Remember how I said you could make three mistakes before? Well, scratch that. A single mistake sends you back to the beginning. You’re dancing to Jack’s beat, or you’re not dancing at all, friend. Should you manage to clear that difficulty, you’ll unlock Jack’s Nightmare, a new mode. I’d love to tell you how that mode works, but I’m still working on Retro Hard.

The Game Center achievements point to extra goals for exceptionally skilled players. There are time challenges for each level, challenges to string together perfect combos, and of course, making it through the game without dying. One achievement has you doing pretty much all of this at once. Have fun, go-getters! Jump Jack also features leaderboards that track total time, score, and deaths for normal and hard difficulties. You’ll have to beat the game to even place on the leaderboards, though, and judging by how few names I see on there, that’s not something a lot of people have managed yet.

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The controls are easy and work pretty much as you need them to. There are virtual buttons for each type of jump, the cape deflect, and shooting. You have to hold down the shot button to charge the super-jump before you can use it, so you’ll want to keep track of the best chances to do that in each level. If you can destroy a bunch of enemies in a row, you’ll be granted a super-beam which can be a double-edged sword. You see, if you accidentally kill an enemy you need for a stepping stone, and don’t have a super jump charged up to compensate, well, you’re dead. Your regular attack won’t kill most enemies in one shot, giving a precious second to register your grievous error, but if you’re powered up, good luck.

In terms of the presentation, the game goes for a pixel art style, with Jack himself receiving the most attention as far as animation and details go. The backgrounds look pretty good, and the enemies are, if nothing else, easy to spot. The music is fast-paced but not particularly catchy. Given how much this feels like a rhythm game, it would have been neat if things could have been synched up in that regard, or at least given some emphasis with some powerful sound effects. Instead, the audio presentation is pretty straightforward retro-style run and gun stuff. Not bad, mind you, but nothing that stands out all that much.

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There is a small but devoted group of gamers out there that embraces super-hard games like Jump Jack, and I think that particular bunch will enjoy it quite a bit. For everyone else, it’s hard to say if the strict, precision-demanding gameplay of Jump Jack will strike a chord or send you packing. If you can get into its frame of mind and essential rhythm, you’ll have a good time hopping, bopping, and shooting your way through Jack’s adventure, but I think it’s at least as likely that you’ll end up getting aggravated and tossing it aside for the sake of your sanity. Patient players with swift reflexes and tenacity to burn will want to give this a look for sure, though.

  • Jump Jack

    Get ready for a retro challenge in Jump Jack: an action platformer reminiscent of 2d side scrolling classics. Play as Ja…
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