(Image credit: Nexile)
Jump King released very quietly back in May. It’s a game about a person, specifically a king, who must navigate to the top of a platforming gauntlet solely by jumping. I wrote about it very briefly when it came out, but ever since I’ve been checking in occasionally to see how Jump King is faring.
(To answer that question, here’s a sample of some recent Steam reviews: “If you ♥♥♥♥ing hate yourself you should buy this game”, “i am not king of jump”, “you jump”, “Horrible game with memorization controls”.)
The thing about Jump King is that it’s immensely bloody hard. Because the Jump King cannot do anything except jump (he cannot walk!), the player constantly needS to ensure their current jump isn’t going to undermine a jump several jumps in the future. If you do happen to make an erroneous jump, you’ll tumble downwards until you hit the next surface, which in a lot of cases can be the very beginning of the game. Think of it as a more straightforward take on Bennett Foddy’s Getting Over It. Yep, it’s one of those games.
I’ve seen streamers like Shroud and sodapoppin play the game. I don’t think the former ever completed it (correct me if I’m wrong!) but the latter did, and it’s surprisingly captivating viewing. But after several evenings spent watching streamers play Jump King back in May, I had to make a concerted effort to stop: it was making my heart palpitate, it was making me anxious and fidgety, it was even making me angry on occasions. It’s one of those games. And I haven’t even played it.
Anyway, thanks to speedrunner CreepinAtMyDoor, it’s now possible to watch a playthrough of Jump King without getting really mad. The speedrun scales the gauntlet in 4:34, and doesn’t really capture the gnawing sense of existential dread the game can elicit. Which is a good thing, I guess. The video is embedded below.