Cliffed
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| Cliffed

There was a time when the iPhone gaming public was interested in something other than Angry Birds. The game in question was Doodle Jump.

Doodle Jump was another massive hit that was as simple a game as you can imagine, yet incredibly (or ‘insanely’ if you want to follow the game’s official subtitle) addictive due to a combination of clever design choices like real-time scoring markers and random level layouts.

Cliffed is from that school of game design, created out of one basic idea – in this case, falling against a rapidly rising screen. Unlike Lima Sky’s breakout hit, however, it lacks the cleverness behind the simple exterior to make much of an impact.

Drop it like it's hot

The aim of Cliffed is to drop as far as you can without touching the top of the screen. As you fall, the pace of the screen moving up increases, thereby becoming trickier to ensure your character is one step ahead of being ‘cliffed’ (as the game puts it).

Control is handled via two very large 'left' and 'right' buttons on the side of the screen, with the pause button activated by pressing the playing area in the centre and ‘dashing’ performed by double-tapping either direction.

As your chosen character falls down the pit, platforms appear randomly to slow him down, the idea being that you have to run to the nearest opening. Running off-screen warps the character back to the opposite side.

To make things a little harder are a variety of inanimate objects, again placed randomly along a platform. There’s no 'jump' button so you only ever get one object per ‘floor’, but as the speed of the screen is always increasing they can (and will) end up trapping you in, despite their harmless nature and generally pleasant disposition.

Cliffhanger

There are three different-looking stages to play across – the decent Cliff and Desert, and the hard-to-see City – but these are purely cosmetic variations and don’t contain any new features.

There’s also a wide range of characters to unlock, most of which are accessed by reaching certain ‘speeds’ during the game. The characters, as with the rest of Cliffed, are well-drawn and animated, and are generally amusing (the rabbit called 'Bunbun' who has a stick with a carrot on the end strapped to his back is particularly fun to watch run about).

And that’s about it. Whereas something like Doodle Jump gradually introduces new obstacles or enemies, Cliffed stays the same forever, with only the pace changing as the minutes tick by.

Due to this lack of variation and the absence of any form of online leaderboards or even social network challenges for friends, the game quickly loses its appeal, despite the temptation of unlocking more quirky characters.

Cliffed

Cliffed is well-presented and smooth to play, but is just too sparse in both content and gameplay to be anything more than a momentary distraction
Score
Will Wilson
Will Wilson
Will's obsession with gaming started off with sketching Laser Squad levels on pads of paper, but recently grew into violently shouting "Tango Down!" at random strangers on the street. He now directs that positive energy into his writing (due in no small part to a binding court order).