Spider Jack Windows Phone

Spiders have been having something of a gaming renaissance recently, with them being the heroes of Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, this title and… well, alright, so that’s it, but these are spiders we’re talking about. They have to take what they can get. Two fairly major mobile games are better than nothing.

Both Spider Jack and The Secret of Bryce Manor realise the same thing: that spiders make for great smartphone protagonists thanks to their scuttling, web-spinning ways. Fortunately, they also realise that there are different ways to make use of those abilities. So it is that Spider Jack is a dinky little puzzle game of swinging and climbing, all about shooting your web at right target in the right moment in order to collect stars and get to your lunch while avoiding the myriad obstacles in your way. The controls are beautifully simple: tap on a point to launch your web at it, swipe across the web to cut it. And that’s it! Jack will climb up any shot string, while gravity causes it to swing as expected, allowing you to launch it across lengths of the screen with a well-timed swipe should you so wish, or to swing from point to point with multiple taps.

The game makes no attempts at verisimilitude, as the star-collecting might hint: this is a puzzle game with openly artificial environments, a spider that can only launch its web at dictated points, and an environment dotted with miniature dangers and tools – and it suffers not at all for it. Instead, the abstract design allows for tightly designed levels: levels where split-second timing and well-judged target points allow Jack to glide gracefully between obstacles to collect a star; climb past electric fences just as they switch off; launch itself into a nearby bubble at a suitable angle and speed to float to the goal. These miniature obstacle courses are short, tricky, and fall just the right side of frustrating, forcing you to work for your successes, but never feeling unfair or impossible.

It’s all carried along by a jaunty, if simple, art style, starring a spider only too happy to get his mandibles on any unsuspecting flies. This is a game which, like the classic BBC cartoon series Spider!, realises that spiders can, in fact, be cute if given the right treatment, and the perpetually grinning Jack does a good job of being adorable, particularly for a green-faced arachnid.

In all, it’s a charming, simple little game, playable by young and old alike, and I’d be happy to recommend it, but for one thing.

This is a 69p game on the iPhone App Store, and 59p on the Android Market. It must be a similar price here on the Windows Phone Marketplace then, right?

Wrong. At a whopping £2.29, even with 75 levels it’s hard not to feel a little cheated: even the addition of Xbox Live connectivity isn’t enough to justify a price hike of over 200%. It’s still a lovely game, but slight, and at that price… well, I’d certainly want to think about how much I was willing to pay for the privilege of flinging Jack around a screen. It’s still worth your consideration, but a real shame about the price point.

Spider Jack Xbox Live Achievements

• Good Spider (5 points): Collected 50 stars.
• Excellent Spider (10 points): Collected 150 stars.
• Master Spider (25 points): Collected 255 stars.
• Speedy Spider (15 points): Collected 30 vanishing stars.
• Lightning Fast Spider (25 points): Collected 48 vanishing stars.
• Barn Star Hunt (40 points): Collected all stars in all Barn levels.
• Bathroom Star Hunt (40 points): Collected all stars in all Bathroom levels.
• Laboratory Star Hunt (40 points): Collected all stars in all Laboratory levels.

Spider Jack Gameplay Video

Spider Jack Screenshots

Version Under Review : 1.0.0.0

There is a trial version available and the full version is available for $2.99, we are not sure what the limitations of the trial version are.

Our Rating for Spider Jack

What do you think of this WP7 Game ?

Scan this QRcode with Bing vision ( Hit the hardware Search button and click on the small icon that looks like an eye ) on your Phone to download this game on to your Windows phone device.

$2.99

Spider Jack

Developed by: Electronic Arts

wiper rated it : 4/5 for version 1.0.0.0

This game has been tagged as: $2.99EA Mobilekids will love thisphysics gamepuzzle gameRating – GoodSpider Jack

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Article written by wiper

I've been gaming since I first played Chess on the Amstrad PCW, and have never looked back. The advent of smartphones has given rise to an exciting new world of possibilities for gaming, and I've been particularly enamoured with Windows Phone 7 thanks to its integration with Xbox Live, and the minimum specifications Microsoft had for the handsets meaning that all of them are capable gaming devices. Also, because the OS is just so damned sexy. When I'm not playing or reviewing games, I have a variety of other interests and hobbies, not least ancient literature and history, subjects in which I hold both a bachelor and master of arts; so if you've any questions about which of the ancient Greek novels is the best,* you know who to ask! *Lucian's True History

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