Jumping Frenzy: To chaotic to be enjoyable

The JumpingFrenzy app is all over the place, quite literally in fact. You’re tasked with maneuvering two stick men from left to right in order to catch an assortment of animals, chairs, boxes and humans as they helplessly leap from the two buildings either side of the screen. The way in which you play is relatively straightforward as well, simply by tilting or tapping the screen to control the trampoline direction. However the apphas one major problem that they really need to fix and if they do they could have themselves a good little earner on their hands.

As it stands, you start with five lives and lose one whenever you fail to catch something. However, whenever a tiger is ‘saved’ it chases you off the screen while other animals or people helplessly fall to their deaths. Easy solution, you don’t catch the lion, but when it falls in the same place as say a human or gorilla then you’re screwed because you either have the option of:

A) Not catching the lion and human and losing a life while the human plummets to his/her death.
B) Catching both and then being chased off the screen while several lives and animals are killed.

It’s not just a catch 22, it’s a infuriating error on the part of the game which makes playing it more frustrating than enjoyable. You just feel like you’re being cheated really.It’s a feature that distinguishes something like Jumping Frenzy and another app like Angry Birds as completely poles apart. Yes Angry Birds may be the market leader, but that fact remains that you can just pick up angry Birds and play it for five minutes. Unfortunately the same can’t be said of Jumping Frenzy (at least in it’s current guise) because it’s far too hectic to get your teeth into, even for two minutes.

Some audiences might be able to see past that flaw, but for the more casual, on the go gamer, it will be nothing more than an irritating addition to what could have been an enjoyable little game.