Jump in the shoes of Jack B. Nimble and master the whip in this Game Boy styled auto runner.
Jack B. Nimble [$1.99] by Sean Noonan, is an endless 2D platform ‘run n’ whipper’ presented in a vintage 8-bit Game Boy style.
The game draws clear inspiration from the early NES classic Castlevania, with the player character whipping candles Belmont style as he runs through a medieval looking world. The character himself is a bit of a Indiana Jones, or Pittfall Harry, sporting a brimmed hat and jacket, cool!
The designers did a good job at replicating the vintage genre. The multi-layered sound track once again draws inspiration from games like Castlevania and Ghost N’ Goblins. It really takes you back to the 90’s!
Graphics and music are the definite highlight of this games offering. The game-play on the other-hand is unfortunately quite repetitive and ‘casual’ (unlike most classic Game Boy titles).
Jack B. Nimble does a good job at reminding us of the fantastic games of Yore, but falls short in delivering a game-play comparison. This is in part due to the current climate in the app market, where simple /endless games are revered, ala Flappy Birds, Crossy Road.
Jumping over gaps and whipping at candles is the name of the game. The game speed progressively gets faster until eventually you die. When the game gets too fast, the player can also run through grass to slow down the game speed.
3 different locations are currently on offer with visually different themes, a real nice way of keeping it fresh. However the game-play between levels remains relatively identical – jump whip, jump whip.
I wanted to like this game more, the graphics are quite awesome with multiple levels of parallax, weather, kick ass music – all the makings of an amazing game.
If only there was a little something more to the progression of the game (maybe a whip upgrade or something).
The default placement of the pause button is very peculiar. Many a time I was on a dream run and accidentally toggled pause, which almost always ends in a game over. There is an option to change the position to the screens lower center (where it probably should have been to begin with).
Performance is a bit of an issue also, on both iPhone 5S and the new iPad AIR, the game was stuttering frequently with choppy terrain scroll. Once again, there is a setting to disable certain features to increase performance, but I can’t help feel that the game should run as best as it can with the default settings (especially on newer iOS devices).
All-in-all it’s a decent indie game that leaves you wanting a bit more.
There have been frequent updates from the developers which is great to see, and I’m sure they will bring us even more value over the coming months.
No comments