DeRail Games Jump‘n Bounce invades the Indie Marketplace with corky charm and retro yet innovative game play. Some games are an easy feat and provide no difficulty for the player, while other games are impossibly hard as these games are for the extremely hardcore. Jump ‘N Bounce is a mixture of both by having easy starter levels which become increasingly difficult. Are you game enough to beat this retro take back to the 80’s? Read on to find out.
You play as Hug the bouncing emoticon who journeys through 40 levels and an extra 10 unlockable Director’s Cut levels for the hardcore player. Hug bounces and bounces, he never stops bouncing, creating a challenge upon itself through levels designed to test the skilled gamer. The entire level is displayed in one screen, so you can see where everything is to plan out your next move. A fault I have found with this mechanic it can be very hard to see what everything is, you don’t even realize what the enemies look like. A nice feature to go along with this game would be the ability to zoom in and out when desired. The lack of zoom does not ruin the game, it just would have added to the already great graphics and gameplay.
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Jump‘n Bounce’s gameplay is rather straightforward yet it can become complicated at times. You bounce to reach the star at the end of the level. Each level have their obstacles to prevent you from reaching the star including spikes and flying balls. You are defenseless against these obstacles and your only way to succeed is to avoid contact, if not you hear your screeching death. You have the ability to jump in mid air and fast fall to the ground to break cracked bricks. On occasion when in intense gaming session it is sometimes hard to remember which button is which and it has taken many lives from me.
The games difficulty has a rather easy learning curve in the beginning, but it then advances in difficulty fast. You must succeed in using previous techniques if you want to pass the harder levels. This is a true trial and error mixed with skill game as each failure freezes the game until you respawn and it commences again, but the longer you wait the harder it can get. You expect the game to restart and follow the same pattern, but the game just keeps flowing until you reach the end of the level. The time is against you as you try to reach the end because the score continues to drop until you finish or collect bonus points scattered around the levels.
Jump‘n Bounce’s graphics is incredibly accurate to the late 80’s games. The sprites and animation resemble so much of the beloved arcade cabinet games. DeRail Games have put so much love and care into this product, it is so polished that it may as well be put into an arcade cabinet in arcades around the world. The only fault, and a minor one at that, is how you can barely distinguish what some things are as you are so zoomed out.
The sound quality of Jump‘n Bounce is beyond amazing and fantastic, it raises the bar for every indie game developer out there. The sound effects are pure gold and retro, every time you collect a power up and hear that fantastic chime you can only be brought fond memories from games of the 80’s. The songs in the game are a plenty and well constructed, they are memorable and never annoying even when you have to listen to it until you finish the level, which at times can take a while. I did notice a song in the game that was very similar to another indie game, but it was only the menu song and I don’t know if the other indie developer has approved the usage of it.
Every gamer should have fond memories of trying to reach high scores of the games of the old. Jump‘n Bounce succeeds in that by having local leaderboards to try and improve on your score. This game does not even need a global high score leaderboard as this is a true retro game. The challenges that you must overcome are a triumph to the player when finally succeeding. Jump‘n Bounce is only 80 :MSPoints: and is a steal at such a low price for a phenomenal game that brings life into games of the 80’s with modern game play twists. Now if you can excuse me I must find out where I can get my hands on the song of level 8.
You can find more information on Jump’n Bounce on the Marketplace.
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