Jrump - Mobile Game : Critical Analysis
Introduction: “JRUMP”, is indeed a good idea from a bad idea. The team from New Zealand wanted to deliver a game which addresses the scenario surrounding the American politics with a satirical approach which has been claimed to be “Not to be taken seriously”. The game play is experienced to be quite addictive among users with the mechanics, dynamics and the aesthetics of the game stands support to this fact. MDA (Mechanics, Dynamics and Aesthetics) Framework of JRUMP: Mechanics:
JRUMP has some simple yet powerful mechanics involved as listed below: Jumping – Jrump has to jump on the walls built to get higher Building – The users has to draw lines to build the wall for Jrump to make the jump. Falling – Jrump drop down as a sign of losing the game.
Colliding – Jrump makes collision with different characters which could increase the potential of losing the game.
Tackling/Dodging – Jrump manages to avoid the collision to progress further thereby mechanism of tackling/dodging comes into picture.
Collecting – Jrump can collect American eagle rewards as he gets higher in the journey.
Directing/Aligning – User has to tilt and align the device to collect the reward eagles during a particular phase of the game play.
Flapping – Jrump gets wings on activating American Eagle flight and flaps his wings to get higher.
Boosting/Flying – Jrump boosts up energy level on certain jumps and slings through the space at a rapid speed. The above listed mechanics can be divided into two broader categories. Core mechanics and Secondary mechanics. Jumping, building, falling, colliding form the former and Collecting, directing, flapping, boosting group into the latter. Dynamics:
As per the definition, Dynamics are the run-time behavior of the mechanics acting on player input and "cooperating" with other mechanics. So let us discuss the dynamics of Jrump inline to some of the above listed mechanics. First, Jumping- The Jump action is triggered when the character comes in contact with the walls built and does not involve user interaction. The output is to jump higher to reach the galaxy and save it as claimed.
Second, Building – Construction of walls by drawing a line is an interesting mechanic which triggers the dynamic of creating a platform on whose contact the jump action occurs. The dynamic works in two ways depending on the size of the wall built. For a smaller wall the jump is more and for a bigger wall the jump is less. The core idea behind this dynamic is to challenge the user to be more accurate on the landing point of Jrump after a jump. Also the walls could be directed in any angle in which Jrump makes his next jump and also different moves of jump is an add-on dynamic. Third, Falling – This is to imbibe the feature of defeat in the game and triggers the user to play smart to avoid losing.
Fourth, Colliding – the consequences of colliding to the other side characters (Mexicans, global warming scientists, aliens, politicians) has been designed with a comparative dynamic behavior. For example, when Jrump collides with Scientist he loses balance but has a chance of survival if a wall is built instantly on his point of imbalance whereas when Jrump collides with Barack Obama (Jet striped character) it’s an instant blow and end to the game. So, this is an inquisitive dynamic which grabs attention to.
Fifth, Collecting – Rewarding is always a motivating factor to keep going in the game. As Jrump collect more American eagles, All American eagle flight is activated which gives him wings to flap and fly high faster. The mechanism of collecting objects is the trigger to this dynamic which elevates the feel of getting high quick. Aesthetics: On the bright side, Jrump has a captivating backdrop of the much talked political satire to its theme. That serves as the elevator pitch for this simple idea going viral. The use of walls as the medium to get through the game which is an interesting analogy to Trumph’s bias to the building of walls. In design perspective, the game restart page is designed intelligently which keeps the player going on and on to try once more when they lose. The larger size of the restart button and the position of it in the screen is in such a way that, it just pushes to press it to try once more. Spin wheel (Donald’s winning wheel) is an extra bonus and also makes us watch an Ad to spin the wheel once more to try our luck of getting free coins. Interesting use of words like Lost Vegas, New Dork, Follywood to replace the actual words is a factor that brings smile to our face and contributes to the feel of the game. The progressive coins’ collections like it starts from the count where we lost it last time even we quit and play again is a nice aesthetic to look into as it does not demotivate you by starting with zero every time. On the negative side, the audio heard on losing every time and the display text is a huge demotivating factor which just makes me quit the game at times. Also throughout the game play a single audio theme exists which fails to boost up the rhythm of progressing through the space higher. By this it fails to make an emotional connect of keep going. Despite the act of jumping and avoiding collisions to get high Jrump does not have any other interactive visuals like a shield armor, kill enemies which is a let down again. Comparative Analysis: I would like to post a comparison of JRUMP to Ninja Jump which is also a quite popular game, as they share a lot of things in common. Ninja Jump also has the same mechanic of getting high by avoiding collisions and acquiring new powers switching between walls. Ninja Jump also has exciting ways of collecting objects and acquire new skills, rapid speed increase and also interactive visuals like Armour, jump styles etc. On comparison of Jrump to Ninja Jump, it seems Jrump is an adaptation of the mechanics and dynamics of Ninja Jump with a limited scope of interactive design and in an different backdrop of political platform to fit the current happenings.
Conclusion: In summary, I would like to converge the features of JRUMP which is addictive and time killing game play which has large potential to make it big. With the available version of the game, we could say it’s fun to play if you manage to be a good architect of building walls to get our hero to reach the outer space and thereby giving Jrump a chance to save the galaxy from chaos
