Game Review: Clumsy Climber (Mobile – Free to Play)

Coming from prolific mobile devolper Ketchapp and Ava Games, Clumsy Climber is a free to play game that follows a tried and tested formula. Simple to play, difficult to master, limited but addictive gameplay, little replay value and a silly asking price for the sole in-app purchase of removing ads.

You control a climber as you makes his way upwards to escaping the rising waters. Tap the screen when the orange hand is on a beam to move upwards. You’ve got to be quick though as a missed climb and it’s into the water with you!

At first it seems extremely difficult as your timing has to be pretty precise but once you get to grips with how it works you’ll be scaling upwards with ease. At least until you come across some of the more challenging moments that involve moving ledges and handholds. It can get very tough but you’ll certainly get that urge to give it one more go.

So what’s your reward for the coins you earn as you play? Cosmetics! Play through the many levels and unlock over 80 different cosmetics. They offer no variations in gameplay at all and it will take you a long time to unlock them all. Of course you can always watch ads to earn extra coins but considering these also run after every few attempts you could spend a large portion of your time just watching ads!

Which brings us to the in-app purchase. A favourite of Ketchapp, you can remove ads from the game for the hilarious price of £2.99. This has become the standard price for the removal of the ads within a game. A fair price if there was value for money but there isn’t. In fact Climber is ugly to look at, suffers occasional lag and has no music either, only effects so annoying you’ll be turning down the sound very quickly.

It’s not the worst offender and it’s always nice to not see the in-game currency attached to real-world money but it’s still a lazy offering.