MANILA, Philippines – Platformers are a long-standing gameplay type available in video games. In the common platforming games, your task is literally to get from point A to point B while avoiding obstacles and jumping across chasms to reach an end goal.

When you have an endless platformer, however, the trick isn’t in getting from point A to point B as quickly as possible: it’s staying alive by taking calculated risks with your character’s abilities.

This is the premise of Jump for Your Life, an endless platformer by Yes Please Games for iOS devices.

Playing the role of Pudgy McEaton, “the world’s fattest treasure hunter,” you have the task of keeping Pudgy (a cringeworthy name if there ever was one) on his toes, leaping across platforms and avoiding bats and other hazards in an attempt to amass gems and keep jumping for his life.

Jump for Your Life is like many other Endless-type games on mobile devices. The game creates procedurally-generated platforms that will fall if your character stays too long on them, creating a constant rush to leap to the next waiting platform and pick up treasure along the way.

Obstacles and Issues

There are obstacles that also need to be bypassed by your jumping skills. Some of these crumbling platforms have spikes on them that retract and launch upwards in timed intervals, making the skill based game a little bit harder, but not insurmountable.

What actually happens though is that you have very little time to react. When you jump, you don’t get to see the platform below depending on the positioning of the platforms by the system, so it becomes very hard to tell if you’re jumping on spikes or not.

As such, even in the first minute of a run of the game, you’re already saddled with adrenaline as you take little calculated risks to get past some obstacles, sometimes without knowing if you’ll accidentally prick yourself on the foot with spikes.

Aside from spike traps, there are bats, blades, and other implements of tomb raiding doom to avoid.

One other issue I’ve noticed is that the game appears to have some difficulty adjusting for “last-step” leaps, a staple of platformers from The Super Mario Bros. onwards. The “last-step” leap is a mechanic to gain the most distance while jumping by taking the leap from the edge of a platform, allowing the player to skip a platform in Jump for Your Life.

It’s the common calculated risk of many platformers and unfortunately, the game sometimes will not respond properly to to last-step leaps.

I use that mechanic to bypass spike traps and to generally make my run smoother according to the rhythm I’ve established while playing. Sometimes, however, using the last-step leap makes Pudgy “clip” – that is, appear to have made the jump, but instead appears to either miss the platform or fall through it.

While some of it is likely human error on my part, sometimes you just can’t help wonder if the game wants you to jump past one platform at a time as an intended gameplay mechanic.

Powerups and sharing

Past a certain point, the game will let you use powerups during your run, enabling Pudgy McEaton to have special powers for a limited duration, such as gaining a protective barrier, or extra lives.

It’s a natural occurrence in platformers, but in this case, it also serves as a means of making sure you have a better score.

Once your character falls to his inevitable doom, you can share how well you did. You can post your score via Twitter or the Game Center sharing mechanism, and then try again to get a higher score.

The unbearable lightness of being Pudgy

Seeing as this game has a story made up for the character, it’s a shame that it isn’t put into better effect in the game. Yes Please Games, in its description of the title, says that Pudgy is trying to prove he’s the best treasure hunter around despite his size.

There is, however, no story-based lead-in or even textual indication to point to Pudgy being a failed treasure hunter. There’s also no reasoning as to what made him decide to enter a tomb where he’s perpetually bound to jump with no end in sight.

Unlike Flappy Bird, where there’s no story, or Oh My Gravity, where you could tell your own tale, Jump for Your Life has its own short tale that falls short of being told, especially when Pudgy McEaton can have so much more character and depth.

As a casual title, it’s a great distraction, and perhaps even a badge of honor to grow skilled with the iPhone or iPad by amassing a near limitless number of points. For adult gamers looking for some truly innovative design choices, a deeper meaning, or even a rewarding tale to cap off some frantic jumping, this may not be the gem you’re looking for. – Rappler.com

Jump for Your Life is available on the iOS App Store