When Apple featured developer 1Button's "Mr. Jump" on the Apple App Store, it immediately jumped from being an obscure platform game into a numbers-breaking one. Five days after the release of the title, platformer "Mr. Jump" has already been downloaded at least five million times, and the numbers keep on increasing.
According to 1Button's co-founder and game developer Jérémie Francone, the Apple feature is really a big help in boosting interest in the game.
"When it went viral," Francone told Cult of Mac, "there was a lot of sharing on Twitter and Youtube. Players keep playing it and sharing their annoyance, their joy or even their will to throw their phone by a window after being stuck for a long time."
The gameplay is very straightforward and simple. Players just tap the screen at the appropriate time, reminiscent of the brutally-hard "Flappy Bird" by developer Dong Nguyen. With an old-school look and feel, all users have to do is guide the character, aptly named Mr. Jump, from platform to platform with only one goal in mind – to finish the level.
However, this is not a "Mario"-style platform game where players control character movements. Rather, Mr. Jump moves automatically from left to right across an almost-whitewashed, blocky environment. The player guides the character to jump and avoid various dangers like pitfalls and spikes.
The game is free to download and play, but there are pop-up ads that appear in-game. Players who don't want to be disturbed can pay $1.99 to get rid of the advertisements. They can also pay $0.99 to unlock levels. Twelve levels are currently included in the game download, and 1Button promises to update it as soon as possible.
During the period from March 19 to 22, the game's earliest days of release, the developers already raked in profits of $79,000 from advertising and in-app purchases.
