Color Jumper (PC) Preview

Color Jumper is, if nothing else, very difficult. The difficulty curve is noticeable within just a few levels, and it escalates rather quickly. The idea that makes it unique is it's almost dice like quality of flipping the players bottom side, changing the colour on the bottom. The colour on the bottom must correlate with the colour on the wall they're jumping to, or the enemy they're jumping on, in order to stick to that wall or kill the enemy.

If this sounds complicated, that's because it is, and if not, just wait. You have to rotate your cube by pressing the same button as jumping, so it's a bit confusing at the start when you have to essentially double or triple jump in air. This isn't the game's fault per se, because most gamers simply have the idea of air jumping ingrained in their heads. Color Jumper changes it very slightly, meaning it feels very different, yet equally satisfying. If the demo is any indication, though, it might ramp up a bit too quickly for some to appreciate, but the player gets the hang of it, it's a lot of fun.

That's good because this isn't very much to look at, at least as it currently stands. This shouldn't be a deal breaker, since the point isn't the art, the point is learning a new system, in this case something as simple as paying attention to the colour on the side of the dice that is about to make contact. The one drawback to the graphics is that it's fairly hard to see the needed colour and move as quickly as required. Perhaps more definition to the colours on the cube would help make the experience just a bit easier. While they may sound counterproductive to making the game "brutal," it feels more unfair than difficult.

The developers are taking care to accommodate other groups of people by including a colour-blind mode, which is a nice new trend in games that focus on colour like this and Hue. This is definitely a title that any fan of difficult platformers is going to want to pick up, but it could have problems attracting those outside that group. So, if a fan of platformers that are classified as "unforgiving," there's definitely something exciting waiting when this gets released.