Jump For Fish Review
- Publisher: Yogurt Entertainment
- Genre: Entertainment
- Released: 14 Aug, 2012
- Size: 33.6 MB
- Price: $1.99
PROS
- Feeding your family is a great imputes for gameplay.
- Two words: Fish rain.
CONS
- Gameplay slow and simple.
VERDICT
While the reason you're playing is nice and all, Jump for Fish just doesn't have enough to keep players hooked and motivated.
- Full Review
- App Store Info
Context is important. Without a good reason for playing the game either given to us by the developers or one we make ourselves, why should we be interested? That's not to say that narrative trumps mechanics, definitely not, but even the best made games without a goal or reason to play them end up just being soulless exercises. Jump for Fish was created to celebrate the birth of the developer's son, and its context for play reflects that. You are a father otter that has to go out to work everyday to feed his growing family. You all have big appetites, and with the missus pregnant, you're going to have to work extra hard to provide food for everyone.
This is done by fishing, but this otter does not fish in the traditional sense, no. He uses the power of bouncing pads, his jumping ability, and a good smattering of power-ups to catch as many fish as he can get his paws on. After leaping off one of the side branches, swiping your finger will create a bouncing pad to propel you to another branch (or you can hit the giant pad at the bottom, which breaks under too many bounces). If you fail to reach a branch with a fish on your first go, you retire for the day in defeat, having to greet your wife and possibly your children with empty stomachs. Once you grab your first fish however, the game continues until the timer ends. Once back home, your collection of fish can be split among your family, and once you fill the hunger bar of your wife, she gives birth to a child, becoming pregnant all over again, and thus you need to work even harder to keep everyone fed.
The bouncing itself is more than a little fiddly, but while being inexact, it still is quite lenient when you've bounced towards a branch. Power-ups include repairing the giant bouncing pad, sucking all the fish to you with magnet power, and even triggering a fish rain, where the heavens pour seafood down upon you, ripe for the catching.
But the gameplay doesn't really stay that interesting for long, and the prospect of feeding an ever growing family can be quite a burden. We all play games to escape from our real life responsibilities right? Nevertheless, it's quite a heartfelt game, and that might be enough for it to be a worthwhile purchase in the eyes of quite a few players.
Screenshots
$1.99
