Rayman Jungle Run analysis

Wait, a mobile game? Yes, Rayman Jungle Run is a mobile game. And it´s awesome.

This game has tightly designed levels, incredibly responsive controls, a nice set of abilities for the player, varied obstacles...This game reminded me a lot of DKC Tropical Freeze´s minecart levels. But it even allows for more different actions than those levels, which is a huge achievement for a simple mobile game.

Just to get this out of the way, I managed to get out of the levels some time and other time I managed to get trapped, but they were small nuances solved in the single second it takes a level to restart.

I´ll divide the analysis in 2 sections:

• Player abilities
• Level design

Player abilities

Rayman is always running forward (this direction can be sometimes reversed) and the player controls him with 2 virtual buttons:

• Left: Use it to jump, hover if held, wall jump, and climb corners. The jump has a nice arc, it´s a high jump, with a good amount of hang time and nice rising and falling speeds, which make it feel agile but at the same time provides a lot of control. Hovering is used by holding down the button while in the air and works wonderfully; once you get the hang of it it´s really cool to maneouver on air currents by alternating long helds to gain altitude and short taps for small adjustments. It will also make you go slower, so you can use it to alter the timing of your run. You can also jump on some enemies to bounce on them.
• Right: Use it to punch or kick if in the air. Kicking in the air will make Rayman loose speed, but punchin while on the ground while make him go faster. This way of relating this action with speed, giving the player more control over Rayman is very intelligent. Hitting an enemy will push him backwards. The distance depends on your current speed, so punching will push them further than kicking and place them in the perfect position for you to bounce on them. Such a simple action is given a lot of depth with these small abilities, it´s just genius!

There is another ability: running. Yes, Rayman does this by default, but depending on your speed and on the angle in which you enter a wall you will be able to run up walls. Even the simplest action, which is not even controlled by the player, has some degree of depth.

This is a masterclass on how to squeeze out maximum depth, value and functionality from the most simplest control scheme.

Level design

But the above aren´t enough to make this game so good. In platformer, good level design is needed and this game has it. All levels have different mechanics and they always start by introducing them right at the start, only to later evolve them in cool different ways. A simple, senseless setup right at the beginning of the level later gains sense when you are going at full speed and an evolution jumps at you with little time to react. At this moment, your brain will draw the required association and make you perform the required actions to push through. The collectibles help guide you through the level while proposing more advances challenges at the same time and everything is placed and synchronized perfectly so you can speed through most levels. Challenges will wait until you are at the right position to start moving or acting (like flamethrowers not starting to shoot until you get close), setting up all their pieces so you can blaze through them if you know what you´re doing. There is also a time attack mode which, as seen in Tropical Freeze, is a great testament to how the developers designed all challenges with the main idea of maintaing a constant flow of movement.

But Rayman´s abilities also allow for timing options, and the game fully uses them to create interesting challenges, so the game isn´t just about tapping the right button at the right moment, but in fact makes you think about what ability to use and how to use it. Should I hover a bit more to land further into that platform? Or just fall so I can get faster through these fireballs and have more speed to make a longer jump? Should I break this door with a jump kick to stop, or do I punch through it? Do I slide down this wall all the way or jump to fall faster?

The whole game is about timing and speed on one side and combat and platforming on the other, the same skill groups present in SMW and executed beautifully. Everything works so well together and is so well thought that even in the unlockable levels, where there are no collectibles, you have no problem to find your way forward. In fact, most times I got through the trickiest parts successfully the first time, only to fail miserably at them in later attempts when I started to think too much about them. If you let your instinct guide you you will prevail, your brain will make the connections and send the right actions to your fingers without you realizing it. But even when failing repeteadly, you´ll soon find a solution and after a few tries will be able to execute it perfectly everytime, another proof on how great and fair this game´s level and challenge design is.

What to learn

• Simple actions with multitude of uses, everything affects speed and positioning.
• Good use of collectibles.
• Awesome, tight level design.
• Great level progression: Levels are structured thematically with gameplay elements an evolve in complexity and difficulty, both internally and externally.
• Time attack mode is a testament of the design principles behind the level design.
• Cool, fair challenges.
• Quick rythm, even in QoL elements like how fast the levels restart or having an always accessible button to instantly restart the level, specially useful when going for 100% playthroughs.