Game Review: Purple Diver (Mobile – Free to Play)

As is now the norm, Purple Diver is a very simple ‘pick up and play’ free to play game with a short life-span and almost no replay value. Once upon a time, the market was flooded by ‘builder’ type games with long timers and wait times unless you spent real money. Now, it’s all about low quality, short gameplay experiences that assault you with ads. Purple Diver is no different.

It’s incredibly simple (as they always are) to play. All you have to do is reach a set goal by diving into the pool. The goals range from reaching a certain depth when you land in the water, getting a good ‘entry’ score or hitting the rubber duck on the way into the water.

Complete a goal to move on to the next level with increasing difficulties and that is it.

You control the diver by pressing the screen. Hold your finger or thumb down to start the dive, the longer you hold it down, the further the jump. This takes a moment to get used too and you’ll probably spend the first few attempts sending the diver into the ground.

Once you do get used to it, you can then improve your jump. By pressing the screen again and doing flips. Hold the screen down for multiple rotations before trying to straighten out for the perfect dive. There are no other moves, it’s just flips and that is it.

Completing levels will award you with money but it only serves to unlock different starting positions on the boards. However, these are also unlocked the further you make it into the game. Unlike many others in this style, at least here we have a goal to be aiming for. That alone makes it more of a game then most.

Ultimately Purple Diver would be a fine if it wasn’t for the ad spam. Every 2-3 attempts you’ll be hit by an ad. In 10 minutes of play we experienced over 15 ads. That is excessive to say the least and makes the game unbearable as it constantly disrupts your flow. Of course you could pay £2.99 to remove ads but there is nowhere enough depth to gameplay to make that price worthwhile.