Joomper Review

I’m not afraid to admit that space scares my pants off. I don’t think anyone’s going to hold that against me. Space is an infinite freezing black void with zero regard for things that are warm and pulsing with life. Space is like a vicious beast that doesn’t actively hunt, but will snag you and rip you apart if you have the gall to set foot near its sprawling lair.

Joomper, from Teorius, is a simple endless jumping game that also manages to capture the empty harshness of space. Granted, the game also involves fighting gravity where there shouldn’t be any, but we’ll just assume the action takes place just above a planet and the gravitational pull is still strong enough to potentially draw you into the burning atmosphere. Hooray!

Joomper‘s mechanics are slightly different from what you might expect from a typical mobile jumping exercise in that tapping doesn’t make your spaceman avatar jump. Rather, you hold down on the screen to charge up a power bar, then you release. If you release when the power bar is short, you perform a small hop. If you release when the power bar is full, you go sailing.

In front of you are girders that swing back and forth, and you need to leap from one to the other safely. At first it’s easy; the girders are all on the same level, and will swing in the same direction at the same speed. But in no time Joomper starts throwing twists at you, like girders that are placed at different heights and swing at varying speeds.

Joomper‘s odd jump mechanics purposefully make it challenging to estimate how much power is necessary to clear girders and that’s fine. What’s less fine is that I often took my thumb off the jump charger only to have my spaceman stay put. With an endless jumping game sharp controls are everything, and Joomper‘s response time needs a bit of fine-tuning.

Otherwise, Joomper is an unremarkable but enjoyable endless jumper. It has an atmospheric soundtrack, and it’s good for keeping you busy while you’re standing in line. It’s also a good way to experience the loneliness of space without, y’know, having to actually go there (*shudder*).