http://appshopper.com/link/hurdler

Foreword

This is a game with a nice simple concept. The idea is something I have not seen before and I was interested to try it out and see how it played.

Gameplay

Well the game is simple enough. You are a runner and you have to jump various obstacles to get to the end. You have 4 different jumps to use. These are done by tapping various parts of the screen Down the bottom is normal jump, on top is high jump, left is short hop and right is long jump. You may think it would be hard to distinguish them with no actual buttons but I found the controls quite good. I didn’t have problems getting used to them either. The obstacles you come up against can vary. Some are simple hurdles while others are wide valleys. You may jump trash cans or banana skins. The point of the matter is if you fail a jump, you lose a life. You start the game with 10 lives and every time you pass a level you gain a life as well.

One of the things I was most pleased about when I first turned on the game was the amount of levels in it. When you select play you are given the choices of Classic levels, bonus levels and extra levels. I myself am not sure what distinguishes them from classic to extra but anyway. All I know is that each one is packed with 30 levels, giving you 90 total. That is a lot of levels to play through and will keep you going for a long time. And some levels can be tricky which means doing all 90 could take a while. Even some early levels may take multiple playthroughs to get it right.

Presentation

The game looks quite nice. You (hurdler) are a stick person. And I think the stickman has some very nice animations. He runs smoothly along the level and jumps nicely. He pushes off from the ground. This is something that is very good. There are various backgrounds put into the levels. Also its easy to tell your jumps apart from one another so you know what is needed for that particular one.

There is also some nice cheerful music which sets a nice mood while playing this. It can stop you getting over frustrated when you cant get through a certain level.

Cons

Now this may just be me missing something but I could not find a pause button in the game. The only way is finish the level either by passing or dieing. There is also no way to return to the main menu when in a game if you wanted to change level packs. The only way is to quit and restart again.

Another thing, while they have global leaderboards these are only on the internet. So when you hit high scores it quits the game and brings you to the website. These really should be put in game and not on the site.

Final Word

All in all this is a fun game that will keep you going for a while even if it’s just to beat all the levels. I think this is one of the easy to play hard to master games.

– Large number of levels

– Good stickman animations

– Some small things need fixing

Gameplay 8/10

Presentation 8/10

Hurdler 8/10