Posted by Ryan Johnson on 08 7, 2010

uFall

Categories: Games, | 0 comments | |

Doodle Jump in reverse is probably the best way to describe uFall. It’s got a doodle theme, similar looking characters, lots of moving platforms, and not so cool energy zapping bad guys. My initial reaction when I first played this game was that there’s nothing surprising about it. It seemed a little too much like Doodle Jump for my taste. However, after playing it for a while it actually began to grow on me. I noticed more and more subtle differences between the two that allowed me to lower my guard a bit and start enjoying it. Don’t get me wrong, most of the game is a complete rip off of Doodle Jump, but it seems to offer enough differences to make the game pretty fun.

Created by Carlo Lanzotti, uFall has the look and feel of a single level endless game, however it does offer multiple levels. If you fall long enough and reach a goal, you transition to a new level that offers an even more difficult free falling experience. The entire object of the game is to fall further than you’ve fallen before. As you’d expect there’s lots of things trying their best to prevent this from happening. The most prominent of which is the collapsing ceiling of jagged glass that forever stalks you downward, shredding you to pieces with the slightest touch. When this sinister killer is near you’ll know because an eerie and scary sound persists until you’re a safe distance away.

There are also lots of other obstacles that make your journey increasingly more difficult. As with Doodle Jump, the most challenging part of the journey is navigating the plethora of platforms and avoiding monsters. The variety of platforms in this game can be both helpful and deadly. Falling platforms help you skip ahead but can also lead you straight to monsters. Spring loaded platforms often hold energy replenishing goodies, but bounce you upward as a trade off. Essentially, when you make contact with anything other than platforms and goodies you lose some energy and get bounced upward. Early on in the game being bounced upward isn’t particularly detrimental, but as the number of platforms and monsters increase, the slightest bounce upward can set you back just enough for the jagged glass ceiling of death to smash you.

As with Doodle Jump the goodies sprinkled throughout the game help you stay alive and provide much needed skip aheads. Fruits and coffee provide you with energy replenishing goodness. Often times these nutritious goodies are snuggled tightly against monsters so if you’re to redeem them you need to do it with utmost precision. There are magic balloon and monster ball bonuses that give you special powers allowing you to temporarily decend downward without restriction. Clocks are also helpful so make sure to grab as many of those as you can. Clocks temporarily freeze the ceiling of death, buying you extra time to slip further and further away.

Overall uFall is pretty fun game. As mentioned, much of it is a clone of Doodle Jump, just reversed, so inherently that’s going to have an impact on it’s overall rating. The graphics are pretty good, the characters are decent, but again, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. I’d say the game-play takes a little getting used to, but the longer I played it the more I enjoyed it. It’s definitely a good value for it’s $0.99 price point, and if you’re a fan of Doodle Jump you’ll probably enjoy the reverse twist it provides.

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