There’s something special about the good old Atari 2600 days, where simplicity was a needed element for new video game players to get into the groove of a budding industry. Having lived through the 80s, simple games made room for big imaginations and good times. That’s the best way to describe how almost every game on the Atari 2600 was built. It relied less on tech and more on gamers to fill in the blanks with their imagination.
Such good times. So simple. So fun. Fantastic.
*AHEM*
Anyway, in the spirit of simplicity, the good folks at Atari and developer Graphite Lab put together a simple game of their own titled Mr. Run and Jump. Can you guess what the mechanics are in the game? Can you??? Mr. Run and Jump is a great example of where old gaming concepts pulled from the 80s still have a firm hold and place in 2023. You merely run, jump, and work your way through a neon void where one wrong step means instant death.
Tread carefully with this one, and let’s get going.
Voided with pleasure
Mr. Run and Jump has a simple story. Mr. Run and his dog Leap start off in an Atari 2600-built maze. He must avoid obstacles while making his way to the end of levels. When one of his levels rips open at its conclusion and reveals a new world, his dog takes a big leap through, and Mr. Run must follow suit. What the pair find is a neon wasteland ruled by terrifying creatures and death-defying levels to traverse.
Simple story, simple setup. Not so simple gameplay design. There isn’t much to judge in terms of storytelling, but both main characters are adorable. Anyway, let’s move on.
Live, Die, Repeat – to be blunt, not an easy cruise
While the story of Mr. Run and Jump isn’t too incredibly complicated, as a perceived Atari 2600 experience generally wasn’t when it came to story, the gameplay makes the experience something more than a mindless adventure. It’s as if the gameplay drives it all. Can you imagine a scenario like that? So 80s.
The joy of Mr. Run and Jump comes in maneuvering through treacherous terrain while avoiding certain death. The terrain could be as simple as spikes at the bottom of a wall jump. It could also be neon frogs leaping back and forth between platforms. There are a lot of ways to die in this game and the game is certain you’re going to experience a chunk of those deaths as you move through it. And this game isn’t for the weak of the heart. For example, each long level (5-10 minutes in length) that you conquer ups the ante when you move to the next level. When you begin the game, you’re just simply navigating your way through decision-making to make sure you jump off a wall correctly or simply land at the right spot. Should you not do either, then you die, quickly respawn, and repeat the experience until you complete it. As I mentioned previously, with every successful move forward, the game adds a bit more obstacles to go along with your budding experience. Maybe the game throws at you more spikes on a wall, or it adds spikes periodically where you used to feel safe on a wall and requires you to either find a way to avoid the spikes or jump between them. The game is relentless in its pursuit to challenge you and it never gives you much of a breather between successes. Death is inevitable and a good factor in why this game was built. It’s like an arcade game in that respect.
Difficulty is the biggest obstacle in this entire game. The game throws so much at you that it is basically twisting your arm behind your back and asking if you have had enough yet. It’s maddening at times and unforgiving at others. The fact that you can respawn so quickly, and I mean instantly, tells me all I need to know about Graphite Lab’s intentions. They want to make you really work for progression and aren’t going to give you an inch in return. There are plenty of gaming sadists out there that will enjoy this difficulty. I’m sure the great Eric Layman and Alex Tudor will find pleasure and some solace in knowing that a game out there enjoys putting it to you on a regular basis. While this game is certainly not built for the likes of my patience, I can appreciate the challenge from afar. It’s a simple game with difficult obstacles, and it’s built for a certain type of personality.
Now, having said that the gameplay design is enormously intelligent in its execution. Some of these levels really ask you to strategize and figure out an ingenious way to get through. They are complicated in their design to the point where you must appreciate the amount of effort that the devs went through to plan and build this game. For example, there is a level on the third world where a trio of frogs is hopping in sync across short platforms, almost daring you to go quickly and haphazardly. Above them are three giant pillars of rock, each creating a path between the other. It’s too high to figure out which one is the correct exit, as the game won’t give you telltale signs of the best path to go. Knowing that you must jump and find space somewhere on tiny platforms with deadly neon frogs jumping back and forth so that you can scout the correct exit is just a beautiful design, as much as it is horrifying. These types of situations in the game really want you to think before you leap and help push the game beyond just a run-and-gun Lode Runner gameplay style. Strategy is so thick in this title that it becomes so much more than what it is perceived to be.
Fighting with the controls
The only big obstacle to this game that isn’t planned is how the controls work. The controls, even in their simplicity, can become complicated in heated moments. Mastering leaping across crevices, sliding down others, or launching yourself in the air while horizontally propelling yourself left or right can be a huge chore. You will find quite a few panic moments where you have overcalculated a move or simply gone the wrong way because your brain is going in one direction and your hands want to go another. I think I died more by my own hands than I ever did at the hands of the game’s enemies. The mechanics are a hiccup and can be overcomplicated in their execution which affects the gameplay a little bit. The saving grace of the controls is the respawn. Coming back to life quickly after a wrong button press or panic pushing kept this from becoming a game dealbreaker for me.
The game does have a sympathetic side to your control plight, though. If you die too many times, the game will provide you with an invincibility star that lasts just long enough for you to complete the level. You won’t be able to score points while tripping on invincibility, but it helps tame that difficulty a tad.
Motivating reasons
The motivation to keep pushing forward in the game came in the form of a few items – power gems, my own ego, and wanting to know what the other levels looked like. The power gems were just pretty neon diamonds and more like a minor goal for my level-completing satisfaction. They weren’t a big deal. There are special red gems that you can find that offer up a more challenging level design and sets of obstacles. I pitter-patted a few of those but didn’t spend too long obsessing over them. It’s an old-school aspect of collecting and trying to get the highest score. Collecting these gems will motivate you to be perfect, but the level designs will certainly kick that out of you quickly. Maybe a long-term goal? Probably most likely.
Design-wise, the levels are stunning. They are beautiful neon that looks like someone was a huge fan of malls in the 80s or at the very least TRON. The color scheme, character design, environments, and even the enemies ooze so much neon life that it’s hard not to appreciate the 2D tech trip that you experience as you move forward. And each stage you encounter has its own flavor of neon and its own design that will motivate you to want to see more from the game, even when it’s beating you down. You need a good reason to push forward through this game’s difficult structure, and the visuals certainly provide you with that reason. To help with those visuals, the entire personality of the game, from music to its adorable mojo, helps make you want to keep playing. The presentation of this title is top-notch from beginning to end.
As for the last motivating reason to keep pushing forward, my ego won’t let me lose – or won’t admit defeat. It’s big when it comes to losing in games. Sometimes I throw in the towel and deflate it a bit, looking at you, Dark Souls series, and sometimes I push on knowing that I’m better at gaming than what I’m getting. It’s fascinating how dumb gamers like me can be with such a big ego driving the boat and how much punishment I will endure for the sake of my fake reputation.
Anyway, there are plenty of good reasons that will motivate you to keep your journey going. There are far more than reasons to stop. Good level design and great presentation are two of the biggest.
On that sweet note, let’s wrap this up.
Conclusion
Mr. Run and Jump from Graphite Lab and Atari is a phenomenal tip of the hat to simple, yet fun games born during the heyday of the Atari 2600 VCS. While the game’s simplicity is a mask for a more mechanic-fueled strategy game that will test your gaming nerves over and over again through its complicated gameplay design, the journey very much pays off by the end.
