Jack n' Jill (iOS)

Every now and then you come across a title that, at first glance, looks like an over-simplistic throwaway, but in execution it brings you back to your earliest gaming days in a mix of nostalgia and old-school gaming challenge.  I recently experienced that playing through Jack n' Jill, a humble little iOS title that proves much more exciting that it appears at first glance.

Released to the App Store in 2013, Jack n' Jill, the work of one Rohan Narang, immediately brings up memories of playing original Game Boy.  This is owing to its monochromatic, slightly pixelated visuals and even the flat, slightly faded background images.  The only thing missing is the greenish tint of the Game Boy's tiny LCD screen, but there's no sense in going overboard, is there?

You play as an adorable little white blob named Jack and are trying to reunite with an even more adorable bow-wearing blob named Jill.  Right off the bat the game had me thinking of Kirby, although Kirby has such an intentionally generic design (the character was originally created as a place-holder until the design team decided to keep him) that it could just as easily bring up memories of The Adventures of Lolo or Nuts and Milk (anyone?).  Although the game has a couple of enemies you may encounter, there is no villain.  The game doesn't seem to need one, as Jill apparently has a habit of getting herself stuck in the most precarious situations imaginable.  Jack must really love this girl, because she is awfully high-maintenance.

The love-life of the game's protagonists aside, the next standout aspect is the control.  Jack n' Jill has a one-button control scheme.  What I mean by that is, you tap the screen (this being an iOS game), and it doesn't matter where you tap, the function is always the same: Jack will jump.  You can tap quickly for a short jump or hold for a long jump, but that's it, with the sole exception a power-up that allows you to fly by tapping repeatedly.  In a way this is one of the things that drew me to the game after a screenshot caught my attention with its old-school visuals; how can a game only have a single button?  This wasn't a mindless "non-game" like Cookie Clicker, so I had to check it out to learn what this meant.  What I discovered was pleasantly surprising, and leads right into the gameplay:

The gameplay in Jack n' Jill is a cross between a platformer and a puzzle game.  In terms of level design and overall experience, it is a platformer, but the control scheme borrows from the arcade-puzzle genre.  At the start of each level, Jack sits quietly, staring you down through your screen.  Tap the screen, and off he goes, running devil-may-care through the level.  If there is a pit, a spike, or any other obstacle, he will run headlong to his doom like a fat little lemming.  You need to react quickly to what is ahead and time your jumps to clear the obstacles.  Now, if this is all there was to the game, it would just be another endless runner, but despite the simplistic control, the gameplay runs deeper than that.  Jack can change direction, but only if he hits a wall.  So running Jack into walls will become necessary to move from one side of the level to the other.  Jack can also wall-jump to scale new heights, collect power-ups that increase his running speed, allowing him to clear longer obstacles, or that will temporarily allow him to fly.  At the start the levels are slow and simple, easing you in as it begins introducing new obstacles and moves.  Half-way through each of the game's 7 worlds, a new power-up, move or obstacle will be introduced.  This results in a difficulty level that increases very gradually.  The first world is cute but slow-paced and fairly easy, but by the time you hit world 7 you'll be pulling your hair out as the game refuses to give you a break and a single slip-up spells doom.  Still, by the time you reach this frantic point, the game has trained you so well that you know you can beat it, even if it takes you a hundred deaths to do it (it will).

You can download the game and play the whole thing with a banner ad if you choose.  The ad squashes the playfield, but if you're feeling cheap or just want to test the game first the option is open to you.  $0.99 removes the ad, and it is money well spent.  Once the game hooks you, you will want to play through all 140 levels and doing so with an ad on the screen is just no way to live.  It's a very modest price for such a solid, addictive and challenging game.  Apart from the fact that the start of the game is almost too easy, the only downside for me is the music.  While the visuals bring up images of the Game Boy, the soundtrack is just too beepy, more like it was written for an old internal PC speaker.  Personally I just turned the sound off, seeing as the game has a handy mute function in the corner of the screen.  I recommend Jack n' Jill to anyone with an iOS device and a fondness for the gaming days of yore.