I tried Dino Jump out, because frankly, I thought the artwork looked cool.
And it certainly is cool, and by far the best aspect of the game.
There are also some real clever ideas in this game. A cute dino escaping a volcano, actually makes a nice backdrop for the game, and as I said, the graphics more or less does it justice. The gameplay is a normal platform jumper, so a comparison to ex Doodle Jump, is quite easy.
First thing I noticed about Dino Jump, is the sound. It is pretty awful. When you play Doodle, you get a "boing" each time you hit a platform. It is a nice boing. The kind of boing you could listen to all day. In Dino, the boing is the kind of boing that makes you cry, and wish you were deaf.
The rest of the sounds are equally bad. From collecting the gold coins ( that apparently isn't gold coins, but DNA looking exactly like gold coins ), to the rest of the special effects, they simply sound bad. It all goes completely wrong when you meet the potaro..... the pterat...... the putaro... the flying dinosaurs. The flapping sounds of their wings adds up to some kind of ugly noise, that belongs in an old eastern european factory.
On top of that, the mixing is off, and especially the Tha-daa sound when you complete a level, scared the shit out of me several times.
Next thing that bothered me, was the controls. In Doodle, the controls are smooth, and spot on. You really feel you can get to master your jumping companion.
Not so in Dino. The controls are jittery, and feels slightly over responsive. It also feels like the collision model is too forgiving, and I came to wonder if this has been tweaked because the controls are not up to the task. As you cant exit the left side of the screen, and enter the right, as in Doodle, but are stuck in the tube of the volcano, I made the following experiment.
In stead of actually trying to hit the platforms, I just frantically tilted the phone from side to side ... and completed a level in first try. I then took it to the next level ( no pun intended ), closed my eyes, and just tilted the phone from side to side, and in SECOND attempt I completed level 9 in Rocky Bottom with 2 stars.
So I have never seen level 9, but I know it has the flying dino, because the eastern european factory sound was there.
And that brings me to my last point.
When you hit a spring, rocket pack, or helicopter in Doodle, it feels very rewarding. You are propelled into highscore, so to speak.
The first thing I hit in Dino, was a ... no idea what it was.
The next thing I hit was ... erhmm ... no idea what that was either, but the dino became a blob.
The feeling of reward was absolutely none, and the thing is, that I know the developers did this on purpose, because when I failed the level because I had to scratch my cat, it told me that I could upgrade "you look like a blob", and JUMP higher.
Ohh, so THAT was what I was doing? Jumping? And in order to get jumping to work, I have to use IAP?
I do not think so!
I can live with the fact, that the game is literally littered with IAP buttons and facebook buttons, but to ask me to pay 1 buck, so I can actually JUMP, is just IAP at its absolute worst. Earning DNA in the game is not an option either. After 9 levels, none with less than 2 stars, and several levels replayed several times, I had earned 165 DNA and could buy a first level set of wings. That simply SUCKS!
A shame really, because there are some cool things in this game. The graphics first of all.
