Down The Mountain
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Release Date: July 8^th, 2015
Developers: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
Publishers: Apple Inc.
Platforms: iOS
Genre: Arcade
Players: 1
Rating: 8.5/10

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Synopsis

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Down The Mountain is a unique and fast-paced arcade game that will keep you hooked for hours. The goal of the game is to descend from an infinite mountain, while avoiding many obstacles and enemies, and grabbing stars and power-ups.

- Beautiful graphics
- Simple yet challenging gameplay
- 60 unlockable characters
- 200 missions to complete
- Win prizes with the prize wheel

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Gameplay

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This is a fast paced arcade game where your aim is to get as far down the infinite mountain as you can before you inevitably succumb to one of the many death traps or obstacles. You play as a cube like character on an isometric mountain with two directions you can jump down. You can either jump to down to the left, or the right. Depending on what is on the tile (as there is a large number of different ones), you may or may not want/have to jump onto it. Reaction time is key in this game as if you take too long to jump, the top of the mountain will catch up with you (as it is slowly falling away from the top) and you will lose. As you play the game, you have missions to complete. Once you complete a mission, you are given another one to do. Completing a certain number of missions will unlock more characters for you to play with. Here is a list of all of the different blocks and traps you will come across on your journey:

Grass - This is the basic tile that has no effect on you when you stand on it
Sand - This tile will fall soon after you step on it, so you will have to move quickly!
Cracked Tile - Stepping on this tile will cause it to fall instantly, leaving you no time to escape.
Spike - This tile has one or more spikes pointing in different directions that will shoot out at intervals, leaving you to have to time your maneuver
Lava - This tile will also cause you instant death by stepping on it
Water Slide - These tiles usually have one or more connected, you will flow along these tiles until you reach the end or jump off
Poison - After stepping on this, you have 5 seconds to get to an antidote (purple bottle) which will be near the poison tile
Sandwhich - This tile will make you stick to it, you have to rapidly tap to get out of it
Switch Tiles - These tiles will invert the controls for the next jump, this can cause confusion if you are in a rush
TNT - When you jump on this tile, it will light and explode a few seconds later. If you are within a 1 block radius you will die
Road - Multiple tiles connected together with a car moving along them, will kill you instantly if you are hit by the car
Animal Tracks - Similar to the car, but the animal tracks can be on top of any tile instead of needing their own one

Items/Abilities
Bubblegum - Picking up one of these items will give a temporary bubble shield, making you immune to everything apart from falling out the map
Stars - The stars in this game are used as a scoring system, every star collected will add 5 to your current score in that game, and will add to your total number of stars that carries on forever
Keys - Keys are rare items that can be used to open chests by jumping on them
Chests - A tile that can be opened by jumping on top of it and using a key to open it. Will contain another character for the player to use
Antidote - Is found shortly after poison in case the player is poisoned and needs to cure it

Overall, this game is very fun to play as it combines classic relaxing arcade gaming with fast paced, intense gameplay. There are a huge number of missions to complete which will give you hours of fun and enjoyable gameplay, you will not run out of things to do in this game anytime soon.

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Graphics

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This game has a classic arcade design, it is simple and attractive. The game is 3D based, but you can't look around in any other dimensions. All of the things in this game are cleanly and smoothly designed, from the static blocks to the animated cars and animals. Everything in this game fits together nicely, the color scheme is very calm, there are no colors or textures that look bad next to another, this is important as the levels are randomly generated so the different blocks and items will need to all mix in together well. One thing I particularly like about the graphics is the way that the cars dont drive in a straight line like they usually would, but they hop between the road tiles exactly like the character does. This gives the game more of a cartoon feeling.

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Audio

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The audio in this game is also very fun and entertaining. There is audio for basically everything in the game, from being poisoned and hopping around groaning until you either guzzle down the antidote or simply popping, to doings when you are impaled on spikes or a high pitch whistling sound if you fall out of the world. The fact that there is a sound for everything makes the game consistent, and all of these sounds working together make the game more realistic.

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Controls

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The controls in this game are very simple, but must be used very well in order to play the game properly. You only need to tap on either side of the screen to make your character jump down the respective way. This sounds like theres nothing to it, but this game is fast paced and requires you to use these controls as quickly, but carefully as one wrong move will end the game straight away with no way to prevent it. I dont think the game controls should be changed, they work fine as they are, but the only downside I see is having to hold the device with both hands and using a finger or thumb from each hand on each side of the screen.

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Facts

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• This game was only released a few weeks ago at the time of writing this review
  

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Rating

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Gameplay - 8.5/10
Graphics - 9/10
Audio - 9/10
Controls - 8.5/10
Overall - 8.5/10