Staying Together Review

Arguably a little like love itself (at least if you ask a cynical person), Staying Together seems fairly simple at first but is actually quite tricky when it comes to maintaining the balance. Fortunately, and again like love, it's worth it in the end as it's a pretty rewarding experience.

Staying Together is a puzzle game where you have to help two characters make their way safely to the end point of the level. That sounds straightforward enough, right? There's a catch: you can't control them separately. Instead, every move you make affects them simultaneously, meaning you have to plan very carefully about what to do next. At first it's pretty easy, with a few simple jumps being all that's in your way.

After a time though, you'll find one character stuck under some spikes while another really needs to be able to jump. That's when you need to figure out a better path to ensure that no one suffers. Love's about compromise at times, after all.

It takes some practice. It's all too easy to be confused and make a complete mess of things. Stick with it though, and Staying Together is worth it – even if it will frequently test you. For free, you get 20 Summer levels with Fall and Winter unlockable by a single in-app purchase of $1.99. This is going to be where things get much trickier, but Staying Together does ease you in at least.

Throughout, Staying Together is really rather sweet, too. You find yourself rooting for the couple, hoping you don't inadvertently squish them because you didn't think a jump through properly. There's no real punishment for failure but you will feel bad when that happens.

Working well as a metaphor for a successful relationship, as well as being a quite challenging puzzle platformer, Staying Together is quite the delight indeed.