Shane has been intrigued by Android ever since he first heard that Google had picked up the little known company that was behind the OS. He remembers thinking what an awesome new world it was going to be once Google got into the mobile device market, and he still thinks that. Shane has been running Android since the days when he had to run it from an SDcard off of his HTC Kaiser II and was ecstatic when he was finally able to flash a working ROM to the old beast. He currently sports a Samsung Galaxy S2 on T-Mobile (with a Nexus S for backup) and is looking forward to all the cool new devices coming out soon.
Have you ever dreamed of flying through the jungle, swinging on your trusty rope and trying to keep from being brought down by the natives while they throw spears in your general direction? Yeah, me neither, but that didn’t stop the developers over at Deemedya from creating this interesting little physics based game they call Rope Escape.
So you’ve just taken something that wasn’t yours, in other words you stole it, from the native jungle inhabitants local temple - now you’ve got to get away as quickly as you can or else you’re going to wind up wishing you hadn’t gotten out of bed that morning. What better way to escape than by way of a comically large catapult, launching yourself tens of feet into the air? It’s not the way I’d choose, of course, but you go with what you’ve got in this situation.
There really isn’t much of a premise to Rope Escape, and to be honest I’m not really sure that you’ve even stolen something - the game leaves you to assume that you have. The premise behind Rope Escape is that you need to try to get as far along as you can and collect as many coins as you are able to, all the while avoiding any spears - flaming or otherwise - that the native population hurls your way. How is this accomplished you ask? It all begins with that initial catapult launch, activated by simply tapping on the screen. Once your character becomes airborne, it’s up to you to do whatever you need to do to keep from splattering all over the ground and exploding into a neat little pile of arms, legs, and torso.
As you are flying to and fro, you can throw your rope and attempt to attach it to trees, rocks and blimps by tapping on them. If successful, you won’t meet up with the ground and end the run, and all you’ll need do is tap on the screen again to release your rope and continue on your way. If you attach to a boulder, it will take you for a nice little ride and they can be used to propel your way rather quickly. Certain boulders have special properties, such as the coin boulder which gives you more coins, or the magnetic boulder that helps you attract coins to yourself for a certain amount of time. You will also find boulders that can upgrade your rope, to either steel or an elastic band - which is also very handy for propelling your character extremely quickly.
You might have noticed the steel rope upgrade I mentioned and are wondering what good that might be. Recall that there are some rather unhappy natives throwing spears at you. If they should happen to intersect your rope, the rope loses that battle and you take a nice little tumble towards the ground. Unless your rope is steel, which is great for deflecting those mean little spears. One other thing that you will come across on your journey to wherever it is that you’re going are rockets. If you nab one of those then it gets strapped to you, or you hold onto it, and they can be used to make some good distances up in a hurry.
Like many games of this type, Rope Escape does provide you with achievements to reach. You can get some extra coins for meeting these goals, such as reaching certain heights or distances. Some of the more fun and entertaining ones are bringing down the blimps - easily accomplished by repeatedly attaching your rope to them and swinging around, then watching as they plummet and burst into flames.
Also like many games of this type, there are in app purchases. You can unlock the game and remove advertisements or purchase insane amounts of coins...neither of which I find particularly necessary. The coins can be used to purchase new characters, up to and including a cool looking banana character, as well as different ropes. Other purchases include the ability to lengthen the amount of time that the in game bonuses are active.
Rope Escape comes with a few different play styles, though they are basically all the same underneath. You can either play the regular “see how far you can get” game, or tackle a “Time Attack” where you have 30 seconds to see what you can do. The third and final game option is perhaps the most “realistic” of the bunch, where you only have five lengths of rope to use to see how far along you can get. I say it’s the most realistic because honestly - how much rope can one man hold?
The in game graphics are pretty good, even though your character is a little on the small side it’s still easy to see what he’s supposed to be. The physics engine is nice too and it’s fun to watch your guy flop around like a little rag doll at times. Sadly the same can’t be said for the game audio and music, but fortunately you have to option to turn those off. I’m sure somebody out there likes it, it just got a little repetitive for my taste.
Apart from the in app purchases, Rope Escape doesn’t cost a dime to try out, and is available over on the Google Play store. It’s a decent way to pass a little bit of time and it keeps luring me in for one reason or another.
