Jumpster Review

Jumpster is a quite charming physics puzzler that's buzzing with attractive visuals. It's just unfortunate that this is marred by a pushy attitude towards in-app purchases.

Players control an alien by the name of Jumpster, who crash-lands on the planet of Okadia and has to retrieve all of his ship's fuel before being able to escape. This involves slingshotting little Jumpster around each stage, collecting up fuel and avoiding the many obstacles in his way. Curiously, the fuel is able to act like a stationary object rather than be affected by gravity, but hey, everything is a little quirky in the world of Okadia.

Slingshotting around each level is a breeze to do with controls proving responsive and accurate. This is particularly vital given that Jumpster's path is far from safe. Spikes are the most obvious problem with one wrong tap spelling instant death. Enemies to dodge soon emerge, also. Other challenges such as opening sections by hitting the correct button and traversing teleports is also important.

It all creates a solid and enjoyable physics puzzler experience, or at least it should. Problems lie in the level of difficulty within each stage. At times, there's a certain amount of randomness and trial and error to figuring out what to do next. A cynic would suspect this is tied into the in-app purchases available. After failing at a level a few times, Jumpster is all too keen to suggest using a level skip that can be purchased with real money. They can also be purchased with in-game money but the temptation to splash out with real money is certainly there. This almost nagging screen can begin to grate when in the midst of persevering. Players are also restricted to a certain number of attempts in one session as Jumpster has to recharge his energy before trying again.

This focus on in-app purchases is a little infuriating as no one likes to be encouraged to spend quite so readily, even when playing a free to play game. There's no need to spend this money but the constant reminders will still frustrate. It dampens an otherwise enjoyable title.