Jack Demo

Fast-paced platformers can drain the life out of the players if they require too much attention all the time, but they can also be incredibly addictive. Hence, although the challenge is just too much sometimes, you can keep coming back on a regular basis and tackle each level when your mind is clear and your fingers are rested.

Jack is a fast-paced platformer in which you control a ninja warrior by the same name and you must navigate a variety of tricky levels. Not only that, but a few enemies try to hinder your progress as well, which means that a bit of combat is part of the recipe too. In essence, it’s all about passing the stages as fast as you can, although that is definitely easier said than done.

There’s not much of a story as of right now, given the fact that the game is still in development and everything else needs to be in shape before a plot is born. Hence, most of the effort went into the gameplay itself, which is still not quite there yet. There are a lot of annoyances and bad design choices, mostly because this is supposedly meant to be played at a fast-paced rhythm, yet the controls are not responsive enough.

To reach the higher sections of the levels, you need to perform a few tricky jumps that require sprinting and the famous walljump technique. What this means is that you have to jump between two walls and make your way in this manner all the way to the top, without making too many mistakes. If you do, the drop takes you back at the base and you must do the same thing all over again.

However, the glitches do not allow you to properly tell when you are close enough to touch the walls, so you must take it on faith or play long enough to learn how to work with this flaw. While the graphics are not exactly bad, the level design is lackluster and repetitive. This may be just a few tutorial and test levels, but it’s important to see that the final product is going to feature more than black walls and a couple of rusty textures with no meaning or purpose.

While Jack is by no means a brilliant concept as of right now, it does features some interesting mechanics, even if they are not original. Hence, with a bit of work and dedication, this can make it into a decent, albeit mediocre product.