Down the mountain [Free] is a super casual, fast paced screen tapper which has you travelling down a blocky isometric mountain in left and right hops. The game has a high reply/ lose often style that has you feeling elation as much as it has you raging . The number of steps hopped down the mountain are a your final score. The game also has a stacks of player customizations much like Crossy Road, as well as 200 micro missions to complete. Not bad, not bad at all.
What initially caught my attention was the game’s clean cut graphics and vibrant colours. The game is beautiful.
As a new user, I found that, in all it’s beauty the game-play feels a little chaotic at times with too many different obstacles on screen at once. Less is more in the super casual world.
I hate using Flappy Birds as an example, (I played it vigorously but always thought it was an overrated hack) but it’s simplicity was part of it’s success. Just a goofy bird and green pipes. By comparison, in Down The Mountain we have lava block, blocks that send you the opposite direction, cars, waterfalls, poison block, spikes, cracked blocks, crazy animals – All pretty much on screen at the same time. Too much? I would have to say yes.
During my play test I found that the challenge was less about strategic movement down the mountain, but rather identifying what’s going to kill you next. I don’t think this was intended by the developers, but is rather a bi-product of having too many obstacle variations in play.
With time and practice any early confusion should be overcome, and what’s left is a pretty sweet game to help break up your boring day and tickle your cornea with it’s tantalizing colour pallet .
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