Updated: October 12, 2021
Jetpack Joyride was first released as an iOS video game by HALF-BRICK STUDIOS in 2011 after the Fruit Ninja game. Jetpack Joyride is an endless running game. Where you travel through a laboratory on a jetpack powered by a stolen ball, in this fast-paced video game, you will try to travel as far as you can through the laboratory, collect coins, avoid obstacles and dangers, and complete missions.
Lucky Duck Games tries to capture the same energy and excitement in the award-winning digital game. And turn it into a table experience with the Jetpack Joyride board game. Keep reading this Jetpack Joyride game review to learn more about the gameplay and features of the game.
Gameplay
To set up the game, each player takes a random set of laboratory cards numbered 1 to 4 and arranges them from left to right in ascending numerical order. The group with POLYOMINO tiles is in the middle of the table and is easily accessible to all players.
If you play with less than 4 players, a certain number of clues will be back to the box. Three mission cards from the mission stick reveal. And the gadget cards place in a pile face down for the first round of play.
Watch Barry Run
Jetpack Joyride plays in 3 rounds, consisting of 3 phases: race, points, and cleanup. Like the digital game, players try to escape from their lab. Collect coins along the way, and complete all three racing missions.
1. Race
The first phase plays in real-time and requires players to collect track tokens from the split group and place them on their lab cards. Players can only take one tile and follow the placement rules.
These tiles create the path through the laboratory. And everything that covers the course will affect the score in the second phase. As soon as a player leaves his laboratory, there are no chips left in the pool. Or when all players pass, the racing phase ends immediately, and the scoring phase begins.
2. Points
Each Player receives 1 point for each coin they have collected during the race (with a clue) in the points phase. And points correspond to the number of stars on the mission card they have completed. Players lose 3 points for each sporting rain that violates any placement rules, including tokens on zappers, lasers, or missiles.
3. CleanUp
When the points for Players in the race have been counted, more gadget cards are displayed—corresponding to the number of players. Each player selects one gadget card to face up from the Player, with the least points in the group.
These cards allow players to break the placement rules or provide more opportunities to score points in subsequent races. Players use and retain the gadget cards they acquired during the rest of the game.
In the final phase, after the first and second rounds, players remove all clues from the lab cards, put them back in the shared pool, and give their four lab cards to the Player on the left. The allocated cards from the previous round are then discarded, and three new ones are revealed.
The game continues after these phases until three rounds are completed. Players then add points from each round to determine the winner of the game.
Fly Alone
Jetpack Joyride has a well-developed variant for a player who changes the pace of multiplayer games from a stressful, fast pace to a tense puzzle. The configuration of the single-player variant is similar to that of the multiplayer game. Except that certain mission cards and gadgets are removed from the game. The phases and competitions are the same for each race, except in the cleanup phase.
Solo players receive a new set of lab cards and reveal three new mission cards. The used tracking token is returned to the game box and removed instead of being put back. It means that each page is only used once per game. After three rounds of solo play, add score from each round and compare your score with Rules in the Rulebook. To see how you did it.
Dare to Compare
Lucky Duck Games captured this excitement by getting players to take clues one at a time in a shared pool in the hope that the first one they touch with their fingers is good enough to fit on the lab card and get points. Sometimes this is not the case, and you have to give up your strategy for the remaining parts to work.
This board game also captures the spirit of misunderstanding about digital gaming by ensuring that a player has a new set of lab cards for each race. The board game also takes over the digital version’s missions, gadgets, and functions.
Other similarities between digital and analog games, such as performing 3 active missions per competition, preparing to get gadgets, and equipping only two gadgets simultaneously, are minimal. Yet impressive.
Conclusion
Jetpack Joyride game review has many amazing things to do. The components are top class, the choice of material, color, and quality of the POLYOMINOS tiles are excellent. It’s easy to work with the messy first phase. I especially like how easily the pieces stand out from the ranking with a track.
The game is very accessible and inviting because the concept is simple, the design is clean, and it goes no further than the greeting. You can entertain a young audience and an audience with good strategy players by providing enough variety in quests, gadgets, and lab cards.
The single-player mode works incredibly well, and besides, an even more complex puzzle for each race when you remove the used track tiles from the game. You are constantly struggling to decide if you want to use a sports rain to your advantage now or save it for the next competitive game, which will probably get more points.
