A surprisingly fun, challenging, and incredibly addicting endless-running platformer came out of nowhere called Gravonaut. The title has been pretty obscure and overshadowed by the onrush of so many high-profile games hitting the App Store before Christmas but if you are a fan of old-school gameplay and graphics as well as enjoy a challenge, do not pass this title up.

Review

The game takes place on the moon where players will control an astronaut who can flip himself upside down and fly to walls by defying the laws of gravity. Gravonaut is incredibly retro in style and appearance and this is part of its charm. Right from the opening credits you see an 80s-style computer similar to commodore 64 — called none other than Commander 64 on top of its virtual screen –and you have to touch a virtual floppy disk to begin. What is surprising is Gravonaut came out not long after another similar-looking and also good platformer was released on the App Store that is also a remake of a previous title, called Nodes of Yesod. Although Gravonaut shares a similar theme and appearance, the gameplay is quite different. This is more of a runner than a traditional platformer and plays similar to Gravity Runner, also on the App Store. There are a lot of things that standout about Gravonaut’s gameplay though that I haven’t seen in any runner I played. For example there are big boss fights here and you don’t just go from left to right on horizontal levels but sometimes the level layout takes you down or up while you have to manuever on the side walls.

You only have to press two virtual directional buttons while running and avoiding various obstacles. The controls are simple and well implemented; showing you don’t need many inputs or even a dpad to have a hardcore sidescroller play well. Despite the runner style of gameplay, Gravonaut feels much different than any other runner I’ve played and this is partly to the way the game has been designed with the retro themed levels layouts. The overall presentation is very well done. Along with the retro graphics there are some old-school sound effects and music thrown in. The game also scales pretty well on the iPad despite not being a Universal App.

One aspect of the controls and gameplay that make it unique is the way you have to control when to jump and in which direction. You can fall off ledges and still jump as long as it is only one time per gravity loss or fall. So sometimes you have to fall on purpose as a ledge ends and quickly jump in mid air to the next ledge further to the right.

Gravonaut has a lot of replay value as you will be replaying levels over and over again with the unforgivable difficulty the game has to offer. There are three difficulty settings you can select before beginning each level and they are hard, harder, and hardest respectively. There are also three different worlds to play including the moon that you start out on. They are available through certain achievements like ‘complete the game on any difficulty’ or the Moon world. Various ratings can be achieved that gamers with a type A personality can overcome — adding further depth and lasting appeal to the title.

The game has been designed with GameSalad by Nexus Game Studio and the first Nexus release on the App Store. There aren’t too many hardcore and challenging titles such as this on the iDevices and with such a great level layout and retro charm.

Tips

1. Play the game on the easiest of the hard difficulty settings first.
2. If a ledge seems to far to reach even at the end of your current ledge wait till the astronaut starts falling first.

Recommendation

I highly recommend it to any old-school gamers and anyone looking to try a hand at a unique game. Even just the art itself and charm of the title is worth the price of admission alone considering it’s only selling for $.99 and is available through the App Store right now.

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