Jumping Marcelo (Game Review)

This is a cool game done by cool people. There, my review is done, you can go home now.

Actually this game really is flawless and beyond what I would expect. But it's not exactly a surprise, because this game is from Double Duck, who already has done something cool with Age of Barbarians. Marcello is a jumping monkey, but he jumps in a fascinating way. And the graphics and all the navigation is just flawless and fun.

Even the opening is fun. When you start out, the first thing you see is the Double Duck logo, very nice:

Having a classy logo helps, and what could be better than a rubber duck riding on a real duck?

Next you see a banana!

A monkey is holding a banana. But the camera pulls back and ...

There is the moon, in the shape of the banana. What is the monkey thinking?

He's looking up a the moon and thinking bananas. This sets a feeling like a movie. You now have some identification with the monkey and you are wondering what the monkey is going to do. The screen says Tap to Play.

The next screen gives you several choices. You can mute the sound, get Help with the game, or go to the store. Or Play!

Here's what the Help screen looks like:

It tells you everything you need to know. Climb up by tapping.  And there's that moon again. I think the monkey wants to go there. Maybe he thinks it is a banana! My last post made a sly reference to the bunny in the moon, and now we have banana in the moon (or rather, the banana is the moon).'

Let's play!

The play is very simple, but works. You tap on the screen and the monkey jumps to the other side of the screen. The screen is constantly scrolling down, forcing the monkey to keep climbing. As he climbs, he can grab bananas.

And those bananas aren't just good to eat. You can spend them in the store. The store lets you buy things with .... bananas. You'll gather them as you climb up. Here's what you can buy:

You can buy a helmet, which give you extra protection. You can buy the ability to get double the bananas. The lightning bolt gives you extra speed, and the jet pack gives you the ability to start the game at a higher elevation (1000 meters). The point of the game is to see how high you can climb, and the higher you climb, the more you'll see.

So you can jump from side to side, but watch out for snakes, tree limbs, and who knows what!

The monkey is about to hit a bee hive. If he hits anything, he'll fall down and you start over again. But of course, no monkeys were hurt during the making of this game, because Marcelo grabs a limb on the way down and saves himself. He's back at the start screen and can play again.

By the way, if you look at the screen while you're climbing, you'll see a Pause button at the lower right. Tap that and you go to this screen:

This shows you your current score, the best score, and the number of bananas you've gotten this round. You can resume the game where you left it, retry the climb again, or quit the game.

Everything is neatly laid out, very clear, and let's you focus on the game. I really like the play of jumping from side to side, trying to catch bananas, avoiding snakes, bees, tree limbs, etc., on the way up, in Marcelo's mad climb to get the big banana of the moon. There's even some cool stuff on the way, where you can grab a helmet and temporarily be allowed to smash into an enemy instead of dying.

Way to go, Double Duck. This is a fun game, and original game (as far as I can tell), and lots of fun. It plays very well on the Firefox OS ZTE Open and I love it.

Cost: Free

Genre: Endless Climber
Score: 6 (out of 5)
Tested on: ZTE Open (Firefox OS)
Get it at: Firefox Marketplace