Plummet Free Fall Review

Like the film 127 Hours, Plummet Free Fall takes a traumatic real-life experience that happened to its subject and tries to make lemonade out of lemons by turning it into a creative work. But that’s really where the comparisons end. The best thing about this game is that it’s less painful than its inspiration.

Plummet Free Fall is supposedly an interactive retelling of the time its creator fell down a hole in China and fractured his spine seven years ago. Making such a cute trifle out of such an awful ordeal seems odd but who we are to judge, really? Everybody has the right to cope in their own way. The game has players tilting their device to steer the poor falling man away from sharp rock edges to get as far down the well as possible. The image of this trapped soul in an endless descent, along with the flat cartoon graphics, almost makes the game look like a soothing ad for depression medication. A voiceover saying, “Do you ever feel like you’re falling for all eternity? Talk to your doctor about...” would feel right at home.

However, for all the quirky charms of its premise, Plummet Free Fall unfortunately falls prey to sloppy execution. The tilt controls have a hard time dealing with the surprisingly subtle movements the obstacles require players to perform. The deceptively large hitboxes on everything only exacerbate the problem. But the worst offenders are the ads obnoxiously placed a third of the way up the screen. Say what you will about full page ads, which the game also shows after a few rounds, but at least they don’t obscure the game in a way that comes dangerously close to breaking it. To be fair though, I only encountered this issue while playing on my iPad, which the game wasn’t designed for. Ad placement in the iPhone version is just fine.

Plummet Free Fall's origins make it a curious game, however the numerous rough edges make it a mediocre one as well. But all snark aside, I sincerely hope its creator has at least made a full recovery.