Since the demise of Flappy Bird, hundreds of clones have popped up to try to fill the void. But now, Korean developer Jinmann Kim has given us Jumpy Rabbit, an iOS game that is quite different from Flappy Bird, and yet also quite clearly trying to emulate it.
Like Flappy Bird, Jumpy Rabbit is so simple that it almost defies description. You tap the screen to make white rabbits jump over a revolving snake as it slinks clockwise around a circular 2D world. A white counter in the center of the screen tallies how many times you’ve jumped the snake without dying. The higher it gets, the more difficult the game becomes as the number of rabbits you control increases and so does the snake’s movement speed. It’s all pretty basic stuff; your grandmother could pick it up and figure out how to play in a few seconds.
Like Flappy Bird, it is both very simple and very difficult, but it shares more than just that with the Vietnamese game. Jumpy Rabbit also sports a similar pixellated aesthetic and a similar (and similarly simple) soundscape that also uses some of the sounds from Super Mario Brothers (like the coin noise).
I will say that Jumpy Rabbit impressed me with its attention to detail. The game’s snake is colored just like a deadly Coral snake, which seems fitting, since it’s capable of instantly turning your rabbit into a pile of bones if it touches you. But the Coral snake is easily confused with the harmless King snake. I don’t believe the Coral snake is indigenous to Korea, and I highly doubt South Korean children grow up being taught the classic rhyme that helps kids differentiate between the Coral and King snakes:
Red touches yellow, you’re a dead fellow,
Red touches black, you’re OK, Jack.
It seems a little ridiculous to assign a score to a game so simple, especially since it’s free and will take you about two seconds to download and try for yourself. But I’m going to give it one anyway, and I’m giving it full content points for getting the snake coloring right.
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