Jumpala

While this game is extremely fun, there is practically no fanbase or community for it. If this game were to gain momentum, I would recommend it. However, with a lack of any new players, with practically nonexistent current players I sadly cannot. What this game honestly needs is to go free, with some sort of "special edition" or type of DLC. This game is extremely fun, and I want to see it expand. But until then, I cannot recommend a game that wasn't alive enough to deserve to be called dead.

This game goes from "oh what a silly party game" to "this is the most ruthless, cutthroat time I've ever spent puzzling and I hate all of my friends now" in one evening flat. Make no mistake, the game is _fun_. I have a lot of straight up FUN playing it. But oh boy is it competitive. The balance is tight, and actively being monitored for adjustments. Death (falling off the bottom) is not simply "failure" - it is a mechanic to be used like any other, and the quicker you realize that, the less salty you'll be when Bommer cuts you off at every 1-wide. Each character does feel quite unique in their playstyle, even tho the only things that separate them from each other are the singular ability and their ultimate. The abilities are interesting and with a post-getting-demolished evening spent pondering really open up to a lot of expressiveness/variability - Lola can attempt to zone off passages with her sword, make escapes with her ult (or devastating multi-kills in larger matches), Bommer can deter people from getting too greedy, cut-off access to blocks she's conquered, or simply doom her rivals to a fall... etc. etc. There are some online play kinks - I've experienced alt-f4-inducing issues a handful of times, but they are definitely the minority and actively being worked on. Honestly at this point my biggest "gripes" are simply quality-of-life changes I'd like to see be made. I'd like it if... - Auto-pop-up steam friend invite after each private match to go away (especially since you can't dismiss it with a controller) - Option to leave/restart mid-match (even if only in private/local matches) - This is more of a longshot, but there are some interesting tournament structures that aren't physically represented within the game itself that'd be cool to see (character change forces, map unbans, etc) - In-game replay system could be quite handy - Advanced training options, like a bot that jumps upwards 1 block infinitely at JUST the right timing, so that you can practice timing stuff like Frore ice at different distances/etc. I would DEFINITELY be willing to pay for DLC with more characters, stages, character skins, block skins, whatever. I like the game a lot and want even more style & content!

Mechanically it's pretty interesting. Plays nice and smooth, everything seems to work fine (even if some of the character abilities can be incredibly frustrating to deal with at first) and it looks like it would be fun to play with friends. Without anyone to play with, though, I wasn't able to really jive with the game. I started it up, cleared all the tutorials, and then went to play some single-player action... and it was just a series of 1v1 games against each of the different characters, and it just got kinda boring after a while and I wound up quitting partway through the session. Didn't see any options to customize my session at all, and that told me that this was all I was going to get out of the game. Which sucks, because it looked fun and interesting and I wanted to enjoy it, but alas. I suppose if you have a group of friends that like the way the gameplay looks, then you might just enjoy it. Otherwise, you're probably better off playing something else. Times like these, I wish there was a "maybe" option for recommendations.

Pretty sweet game. Easy to learn but plenty of room for mastery. Can be really fun and competitive!

간단하지만 긴박해서 신선하다. 계속 즐길 거 같다. 다만, 바라는 것이 있는데 팀전에서 같은 팀에게 공격이 안 되었음 좋겠다... 불편하다. 어쨌든 재미있는 캐주얼 게임이며 앞으로 캐릭터와 맵이 더 업데이트됐으면 좋겠다. ---------------------------------- simple but urgent so fresh. I'll keep enjoying this game. but there's one thing that I want. please prevent the same team from being attacked... It's inconvenient. Anyway, this is fun casual game and I hope for more characters and maps will be update.

Un bon concept mais un mauvais jeu! Sur tous les aspects, le jeu se contente du strict minimum. Par exemple, on a des personnages différents, mais aucun n'a une histoire, une petite phrase, une petite provocation ou quoi que ce soit, un néant de personnalité! Et ce minimum syndical, on le retrouve pour tout! On a pas d'animations mise en valeur pour les supers, les objets et environnements sont les plus génériques possible et on a le droit à de la musique d’ascenseur alors que c'est un jeu à temps déterminé, donc où la musique est super importante pour un jeu de versus! Le mode solo est pathétique, on peut choisir sa difficulté, mais c'est un juste un mode arcade, on ne peut choisir de faire un seul match ou de modifier les règles comme le temps ou le nombre de points à récupérer. La cerise sur le gâteau, c'est la compatibilité complète avec les manettes qui est un pur mensonge, vu qu'il est impossible de naviguer correctement dans les menus avec un manette pro nintendo switch, les entrés du pad directionnel étant considérés comme analogiques pour le jeu et donc on avance par deux dans les menus, c'est lamentable! Bref, le jeu peut devenir bon mais en l'état, c'est une daube!

(아마도 내가 한국인으로서 처음 리뷰를 남기는 거일 겨) 캐릭터도 귀엽고, 게임성도 좋은 데 의외로 안 알려져 있는 퍼즐 아케이드 장르? 하여간 칸을 옮겨다니며 점수를 모으고, 상대의 점수를 뺏고, 특수능력으로 상대의 점수획득을 방해하는 겜임 스토리는 특별히 없고, 다만 적당적당한 난이도와 담백한 맛, 그리고 기여운 도트녀들을 보기 좋은 겜이더라고 하여간, 구매 ㅊㅊ함 한글이 아닌 게 매우 아쉽지만, 한글이 없어도 이해하는 데 지장은 없음

Wow. Simple premise. Fantastic design. Fun for all involved! Whether you're just looking for a casual game to kick back and chill with friends, or seeking to 'jump' into the deep end with some heavy competition and strategy, this game has an incredible blend of dynamics to enable both! I started out just trying to understand the different characters and their abilities, and soon after realized the incredible depth of strategy that is brought forth by each unique character and stage match-up. There are so many ways to play even just a single character to get points. Do you use Bomber to trap your opponent when they're at the top (and collect all the points at the bottom?), or do you take the high ground and cut them off from the platforms above? Do you lock high value points as Cid or entire rows at a time? How about Mr Time... use his time-slowing abilities as a quick (or slow?) getaway, or to rack up major points before they clear the screen. Or just have some fun and slap your friends around a bit (and steal some points while you're at it)? Ive enjoyed getting to ponder and develop my own strategies with these characters, only to spectate a match or tournament or play with my friends and have them use the characters against me in completely different and creative ways. And what's even better is that the play styles are constantly being monitored and rebalanced to ensure that not one strategy or character becomes too dominant. Do I have a favorite? Of course! But there's no way you can get by with just knowing only one character. There's plenty of room for the casual player to enjoy the beautiful level design and style of the game and there's a great system to earn/unlock new stages. Play more, unlock more! I can't wait to see more stages be developed and added over time, and perhaps even a few more characters in some DLC. I would definitely shell out some $$ for that if it brought new stages, play modes, characters, or items. There are a few bugs as of week 2 after release, but the developer seems quite active in pushing patches and fixing even minor changes that enhance the interface navigation, characters, and is really listening to feedback from the players (which is truly great to see). It's clear some playtesting was done to pre-balance the characters and work out the majority of kinks that I would expect to see from a game just 2 weeks after release, so kudos! I'm looking forward to the crowdbase building out and online match-making/versus becoming even better as the (already great and friendly) community continues to grow. Tournaments will rock as the base gets larger and I can even see this becoming a great game to stream live. If you've made it this far, I think the only think left to do is jump straight in to some Jumpala and do your best to make it to the top!

Interesting idea terrible game

Jumpala is an unusual hybrid endless-jumper and 2D retro pixel platform brawler. Gameplay consists of jumping upwards endlessly across the available platforms and brawling the AI. You have to brawl the AI because while the game has a multiplayer feature, there are no players, for reasons we'll get into below. Every platform you jump on has a "score", and flips to your players colour. Thus, as you jump endlessly upwards and brawl, you also will try to flip as many platforms to your colour as you can, and prevent the AI from flipping yours. When you get to the top of the level, the overall score is tallied for the round. The match is won by whoever reaches the target score first. It's ok for a video game to have a unique idea... this is an important aspect of advancing the gaming industry. But in a Darwinistic sense, new ideas only survive if they're any good. Developers must ask "Is this a good idea?" In the case of Jumpala, it is not. Developers must also deliver their idea with cutting edge quality, visuals, polish, all the aspects that drive the gaming industry. Jumpala is not delivered well at all. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result. There's no options to change the resolution for the game or customise the graphics settings. There's no way for gamers to ensure this is running at the native resolution of their displays... there's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. There's no way for gamers to try improve the low quality graphics. While this is on PC, it has all the hallmarks and deficiencies of a console game, from the clunkier than needed control scheme to the less than cutting edge graphics. There's 10's of thousands of PC games on Steam, and PC gamers deserve only the best. This might not appeal to many gamers due to the lack of PC-centric design. It's unclear why this game was never accepted on the video game console appliances it seems to have been designed for. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. The poor quality of this game is reflected in the general public reception. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the game only ever reached a peak player count of only 10 players. That's right, only 10 (they even held a tournament, but this is still the highest player count). This is a pitiful enough number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam, the overwhelming lack of interest in the game is remarkable, but also to be expected. This complete and utter rejection of the game from gamers should be a keen information point for anyone considering buying shovelware like this. Gamers just didn't take this seriously, and for good reason. Jumpala has an overly optimistic price of around $10 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam.