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Finding an endless runner these days with a unique spin on the genre is harder than
you might think. With Jool, that last sentence was actually a bit of clever wordplay because
what this game offers is an escape from the death that is inevitable in the genre. That's
right, did your weird bird character fall from the platforms into oblivion? It's not
game over, just flip your device around and continue the game playing as his malicious
ego heading in the other direction. Oh, the ego fell down? Flip around again and continue
forth.
Of course of this were to go on forever, the game would get boring fast. In fact, you only
have a limited number of flips before death is final, and then you are treated to a quite
macabre little animation (one of thirty) of either the bird or his ego's untimely demise.
The first couple games give you three flips, but after that, you start the game with no
flips. Through your running and jumping (through the simple controls of tap and double tap),
you'll collect many odd items that either boost your point meter or affect your run
in some way, but you'll notice that you'll be collecting the little golden triangles
called trips quite a lot. For four hundred of these, you can tap on the flip symbol and
buy the ability to flip the game and continue forth.
And while the visuals have an entertaining flat color design to them, the screen is often
too littered with objects to take much in (and the power-up that zooms in is disastrous
as you cannot see where the next platform you want to jump to is). The sound is kind
of like the visuals in that it litters the screen, with every object you pick up. There
is music as well, but it's such a background noise compared to the sound effects that it's
almost not even noticeable.
While the turn mechanic is really interesting, Jool just isn't that engaging as an endless
runner. There's no missions or any goal other than seeing all of the death animations, and
really only a specific type of person is going to entertained by them. So much more could
have been done with the groundwork laid here.