There is something insanely addictive in this game, and that's probably why it's a) been such a popular hit on the iPhone and b) why I was more than happy to see this little platform game appear in the Ovi Store.
Should we be worried that, for many developers, Symbian has become the second tier of game development and marketing? Probably not, because it means that developers have found the Symbian eco-system. Would you rather have no new games, or the games that have done really well in the court of public opinion? I'll take the latter, and if everything works as it should for the developer, then perhaps they won't wait as long with their next project.
Right then, available for Nokia's S60 5th Edition devices, your job is to get as high up the screen as possible. For some reason that's integral to the game-play, your character cannot stop jumping – all you can do is steer him towards another solid platform (these are green) or perhaps use the fragile dark platforms. Land on these, and you jump again, slowly working your way up the screen.
But if you miss a landing, you'll quickly find all the platforms below you have vanished, so it's to your death you fall.
The score for the game is the rather obvious 'how high did you get?', and as you play you'll see check marks on the side of the screen just like you have on a door at your parents house, showing how high you've been growing. The game asks for your name at each death, so even when sharing the game on your handset, your best mate's lucky ascent will still be there, goading you. And if you feel the need to see how well you are doing on a global basis, then upload your best to a global high score table. Viewing this, my best score currently has me around the 10,000th position.
The multi-player game offered from the menu is a local version, and gives each player who joins in (up to eight) one run up the screen. This puts the pressure on for each player to make their best climb as only this score is compared to everyone else. I can see this being popular down the pub to decide who's round it is.
Doodle Jump is a horribly simple concept, and the main controls you have are tap on the left of the screen to go left, or tap right to go right. The third control (tap at the top to fire a little gun) comes into play as you climb up the screen and there are some evil monsters trying to stop your ascent.
Developers Lima Games have added in some additions to keep the excitement up, and these range from the helpful helicopters, springs and jet-packs that boost your height far more than a regular jump, to moving platforms that require a deftness of touch to land on them and not fall back down. These can be switched off if you would prefer a more classically challenging game with no additional power ups or distractions.
If you'd rather not tap on the screen, then it's possible to tilt your handset and use the accelerometers to do the left and right actions, but given the arcade nature of the game and the responsiveness of the screen I found that using this was a more natural and accurate choice of input mechanism. But fair play to the designers for including this.
The game also shows how a well thought out design concept helps a title. With hand-drawn graphics, and a wallpaper that looks just like a school exercise book, there's a quirky look to the game that adds to the charm, and helps give it a great name.
Yes it's simple. Sometimes that's what you need in a game. The worrying thing is that while each game takes so little time to play, I've been playing this for hours.
I think that can be taken as a good sign.
-- Ewan Spence, May 2010.