PapiJump

Summary

Are you game for a, well, *erm*, game that will allow you to switch off and relax completely? If your answer is “yes!” PapiJump may be just the ticket for you. This app stands out due to its 1980s vibe and the simplicity of its gameplay.

First impressions:

The player’s role is to shoot a small ball up a bunch of floating stairs. No more, no less—a minimalistic gameplay if ever there was one.

PapiJump is the kind of app that sticks to the bare essentials: the fact that you have fun playing the game. That means no music, no funky background visuals. What you get instead are graphics and sound effects that harken back to the days of Commodore and Atari. The goal of the game is to make the ball bounce on as many steps as possible… the more often the ball bounces the higher your score will become.

Scores can be published on the developer’s website, which, BTW, has a pretty prominent position within the app as two out of the three buttons in the main menu link to it (in order to get information regarding the game’s how-to, and in case you want to see which other games the developer has come up with).

Sound effects are switched off per default; you can switch them on via the settings. If you do decide to switch on the sound effects you will receive a warning that the sounds may influence the app’s performance and may cause it to freeze; this did not occur during our testing phase.

Bottom line:
PapiJump is the kind of app that will help you kill time if you’re between appointments or waiting for someone. If you’re in the kind of mood in which you don’t want to have to overthink anything give this app a go—but be warned that it may not capture your attention for very long.
 

PapiJump’s design is very basic and simple—much like its gameplay. While this can initially be appealing (especially for fans of classic ‘80s games), it grows old rather fast.

Controls prove to a bit trickier than anticipated, especially considering the simplicity of this game. The ball is controlled via your Android device’s tilt censors. That being said, controls are, all in all, pretty decent.
 

PapiJump is available as soon as you click on its icon. It takes all but 5 seconds to get from the Android menu to starting a new game. We didn’t encounter any problems with the app’s stability throughout our testing phase, but we were somewhat put off by the warning message infroming users that switching the sound on may – dramatically – affect the application’s performance…

PapiJump is available free of charge from the Android Market. If you choose to publish your score on the internet additional costs may arise—this is contingent on your provider and on what kind of contract you have.