Mr. Crab [iOS]

Mr. Crab is a crab themed endless runner, or should that be endless jumper? Here you have to jump your way to the top, jumping on monsters, jumping on bosses and occasionally rolling things along. The game reminds me a lot of the Mario series, particularly Mario Galaxy, as although Mr. Crab is a 2D game, the way the world moves is reminiscent of moving across a planet in Mario Galaxy.

The only control you have in game is to touch the screen to jump. Hold for a long jump, tap for a short one. So you jump from platform to platform, do wall jumps and use walls to send you in the opposite direction. Timing is critical with Mr. Crab and if you don't time things right, you may see yourself plummeting back down to where you came from. You see instead of killing you, enemies send you flying back down levels. The game does stop you from falling too far though with platforms collapsing to block the way back after you have reached them. But this can make the game frustrating as you continuously are knocked back to where you came from with no end game screen or anything to stop your next attempt.

I found that the difficulty peaked and troughed with no rhyme or reason, some early levels were hard, some later levels were quite easy. I didn't mind this too much though, as it just meant I needed to really focus and learn what steps were ahead. The levels aren't too tedious as they are usually quite short, perfect for a mobile game. You also get to fight some interesting bosses along the way, although, again all you are doing is jumping on them until they are defeated but it does add to the variety of the overall experience.

Although it is simple, I think it's worth a play as there is something enchanting about the world. You scuttle along as a silly little crab, unlocking new worlds and crab outfits(!?), it just has this odd charm. Also it's free, though you can buy extra levels for a dollar which seems relatively fairly priced. Oh, I nearly forgot! You pick up baby crabs throughout the level which are so adorable, now, who doesn't want adorable crabs in their pants? Nobody worth knowing. 7.9/10