One More Jump is out now on the App Store, providing a brashly brutal twist on the classic platformer template.
The action is flipped 90 degrees, so your little square character is running (sliding?) up the screen rather than from left to right. Also, each configuration of platforms is a self-contained world, so jumping off the edge will bring you around to the other side.
It's a pretty mind-warping take on the platformer, and it's not alone on the App Store. Here are five more warped iOS platformers that don't play by the rules set forth by Mario, Sonic and co.
We're used to our platform characters being living creatures of some kind, or at least some kind of entity with a natural means of locomotion.
Gunbrick rips all that up. You play duck piloting a square machine that moves along by rolling from side to side. Your primary weapon - a whopping great gun that takes up an entire side - is also your means of jumping, as you blast into the floor to gain elevation.
Rarely before has such an awkward protagonist made for such a compelling platformer. It's rather brilliant.
This one will really mess with your mind. In Circa Infinity you're not jumping between regular platforms, but rather are jumping ever inwards into a series of concentric circles.
It plays as bizarrely as it sounds, and its deliberately primitive retro visuals add to the feeling of dislocation.
If we were to hand out an award for most warped iOS platformer, Circa Infinity would probably win.
You don't actually jump in VVVVVV. Not as such. Rather, you shift gravity so that your character flips from floor to ceiling and back again.
We've seen this mechanic in a number of endless runners, of course, but VVVVVV builds a whole sprawling platform-adventure out of the mechanic.
Oh, and don't think that this empowering move makes things easier for you in VVVVVV. Terry Cavanagh's retro-inflected platformer is as tough as they come.
What starts out as a pretty typical 2D platformer soon starts messing with physics and your mind alike. Yet It Moves allows you to literally rotate the world you're running through according to your needs.
Hold your finger on you screen and you can spin the game world like a record. Up becomes down, and sideways becomes... we're not sure what it becomes. But it's something good.
The way inertia is retained makes for some genius puzzles, as you strive to keep your hand-drawn hero from splatting on the floor. Or should that be ceiling?
Gravity - arguably the essential force in any traditional platformer - doesn't really play a part in Hopiko. Your character will happily jump from floor to wall to ceiling in a perfectly straight line, if there's space to land.
And therein lays the challenge, as each surface in each level is littered with insta-death hazards.
As such, each run becomes a question of precise timing and a fine aim, as you swipe and release to flick your froggy feller to the finishing line.
