Jack Lumber iOS

Published on August 20, 2012, by VGMMDI - Posted in iOS 0

9 Overall Score

Humorous | Balanced Difficulty Curve | Intelligent Puzzle Mechanics

Game Info

GAME NAME: Jack Lumber

DEVELOPER(S): Owlchemy Labs

PUBLISHER(S): SEGA Alliance

PLATFORM(S): iOS

GENRE(S): Action/Puzzle

RELEASE DATE(S): 8/16/2012

Jack Lumber is a new slice-em-up action puzzle game out from Owlchemy Labs. The story is simple, Jack is an iconic lumberjack whose grandmother was killed by a rogue amethyst-pine cone bearing tree and now he’s out for revenge. The campaign is set up in a series of stages that each require a combined total of earned stars to move on to the next group. Each stage consists of a series of about 10 puzzles each involving a toss up of a configuration of logs. Jack has the magical power to activate LumberTime, which slows down time once you put your finger on the screen and work quickly to create the path his ax needs to take chop all the logs into so much kindling.

Players accrue lumber as a resource to use in the cabin shop to buy consumable power-ups and various extra items. Beards are purchasable that can add a variety of effects that change the basic gameplay mechanics and score multiplier. I consider myself a purveyor of fine beards, so the beard-themed content mode unlocks are quite awesome to me. Unfortunately, a little over a year ago, I lost my beard in a tragic full-time day job-getting accident.

My Beard about a year ago.

It only takes a couple of minutes to get the gist of the gameplay and the first tier of stages keeps it pretty simple. The stages are static so you can learn the procession and layout of the logs to try to 3(and 4) star every level. Before long you’ll be swipe-chopping your way through one-way logs, cross-piece logs, U and S shaped logs, bundled logs, and frozen logs that require a swipe through a burning log to break the ice. The difficulty curve is smooth and very well done. I found it to be decent challenge to get the third star for most stages, and damn hard to get that 4th plaid star, which leaves no room for error in timing or execution.

Overall Jack Lumber is an entertaining mobile game and very much worth the $1.99 asking price. It is a universal app, so you’ll have access to it on both your iPhone/iPod and iPad if you’ve got them. I found the gameplay to be more gratifying on the bigger screen of the iPad, with more emphatic sweeping motions and a clearer view of the stages, but it is still very delightful on the small screen. Jack Lumber earns a sturdy 9.0 from me. Get your flannel plaid and flapjacks and head over to the app store to check it out here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jack-lumber/id547246359?mt=8