Pocket God: Ooga Jump Review

Developer: Bolt Creative
Price: $0.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0
Device Reviewed On: iPhone 5

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Overall Rating:

In hindsight, it's surprising that it's taken the Pocket God franchise until now to branch out into a gaming genre that isn't sandbox-based. I'm expecting an Angry Birds-style clone and an Endless Runner in the near future, or else. Still, cynicism aside, while Pocket God: Ooga Jump is very similar to other vertical based jumpers, it's still kind of fun.

Players control a Pgymy as he attempts to bounce up, up, and even further up. The structure of the game comes in the form of a series of objectives, typical of such Endless games. Controls are simple enough, utilizing the accelerometer and requiring the player to tilt their iOS device left and right. Proving pretty accurate, it's relatively forgiving. Touch controls feature too, enabling one to slam down on a platform; both in order to propel themselves higher as well as smash signs and gems along the way, thereby gaining extra advantages.

Gems are used to buy one-off boosts as well as other power-ups, so fortunately they're reasonably easy to grind out. It's possible to buy extra gems with real money, a slight negative point for any game that's priced at $0.99, but this isn't really necessary. I still found myself having fun without feeling cajoled into spending more.

The appeal to Pocket God: Ooga Jump comes from two sources: completing objectives and beating friends' high scores. The latter works particularly well given that signs are placed around the jumps, demonstrating whose score one is about to overtake. Smash the sign and gems are gained, making it all the sweeter.

Pocket God: Ooga Jump isn't an original game by any means, but what it does, it does well. It's the kind of game that's easy enough to drop into for a little while, and I can see battling against friends's high scores proving quite tantalizing.