I’m almost certain that you, dear reader, have heard of and have played the ever unforgiving Flappy Bird. It took me about 10 tries to get the flightless bird past the second pair of pipes. It took me around 30 resets to get a rhythm going and sail through the tenth pair. But even after a hundred tries, my highest score never went beyond 50.
Because of the punishing trial-and-error-and-error-and-error (repeat until fade) mechanics of Flappy Bird, I thought that it was the hardest and most brutal game I have ever played. I thought there was no way another game would frustrate me as much as Flappy Bird…
…until I came across Let it Goat, the game that proved the sentences above moot. It also got me singing “Let it gooooat, let it gooooat, can’t hold it back anymoooore!” Like I needed a reason to get that song stuck in my head again.
The game came from SkyVu Entertainment’s Jack & Jack and is described in its Play store link as a “simple fun game about a cute goat named Mounty. JUST TAP TO JUMP over the Spikes & Zombies! Easy to play, very addictive.” Sounds easy right? I thought so too until I played it.
I can’t put into words how I felt as Mounty died with every mistimed jump I made. There’s no steep learning curve for the controls, but I quickly learned that timing had to be borderline perfect if I was going to keep Mounty running and running. When Mounty crashed or fell of the screen, I was greeted by these:
Yes, the game openly mocked my failures. This jeering prompted me to try again and again and again in sadistic attempts to raise my high score. I only began to see past the missed jumps and face plants after literally a hundred tries.
Beyond the losses, the game is very entertaining. Its graphic has a retro feel that is both reminiscent of and different than Flappy Bird. The background graphics are dynamic and rotates between day and night to signal a change in the game’s obstacles – spikes during the day and zombies at night. The music is silly and funky, with *boop* and *meeeh* sound effects when you jump or hit an obstacle respectively. Moreover, there’s a ride-able bear power-up that saves you from one mistake, because why not have a bear-riding goat?
Overall, I had fun playing the game. Near-misses and lucky taps managed to keep me on my toes as Mounty leaped over hurdles. It’s a fresh pickup-and-play-game that is perfect for killing a little time. You can download the game from the Play store here.
Now excuse me as I have a feeling that I’ll beat my high score with this attempt.