Cliffed has you going down, still unceasingly, still inevitably down gaps in cliffs, because the screen is scrolling up, and if the screen scrolls up past you, you get cliffed, and it’s game over, man, game over! This seems easy enough, but whenever a review says something along the lines of “this seems easy enough,” you should know by now that as Admiral Ackbar once declared, “It’s a trap!” There are rocks randomly strewn about in your way, and you have to dodge them as you keep trying to fall down. If a rock gets in your way, thankfully the walls allow you to teleport around to each side, as you can only move left and right, there’s no jumping allowed, after it was outlawed by the UN. Thankfully, you can dash by double-tapping in a direction. Take <b>that</b>, Ban Ki-moon! The game also speeds up over time; you’ll know when it does because it says SPEED UP! in the background.

That’s basically it for the game – trying to fall down and down and down and down as long as you can. This largely is a high score affair, but there’s plenty to keep you coming back beyond just playing for scores. You can unlock other playable characters (including other IUGO characters) by attaining a certain number of speedups, and there is one you can unlock by getting 20 points in IUGO’s VIP program for being a loyal IUGO customer. There’s also a cool online multiplayer mode, where you and other racers are trying to either be the last man, woman, zombie, or tree stump/ninja standing. You can’t really interact with other players, so it’s largely just a shared experience form of multiplayer, but this way lag isn’t a huge issue for playing the game, and you can play the game while getting the sensation of kicking the ass of anonymous strangers at the same time. Huzzah! If you prefer your competition be asynchronous, there’s also a global high score list.

Cliffed is simple, with just the basic gameplay, but with plenty of reason to come back to it beyond just the high score quest. The game has a good feel to it – the controls work well, with the left and right sides of the screen reserved for moving in the respective directions. It’s also just a great feeling when you can get going falling down a bunch of gaps at one after another, and when you manage to just escape being cliffed by dashing right for that gap at the last second. The only issue I have with the game is that I found the timer a bit extraneous and distracting, as it makes you conscious of how long you’re playing, and as David Whatley, creator of geoDefense says, great game design shoots for “5 minute” intervals of gameplay – not literally 5 minutes, but the thought that the player can pick up the game and play it and get their entertainment value out of the game in that 5 minute interval, even if you wind up playing for hours upon hours at a time. Cliffed’s timer is always there making you conscious of how long you’re playing. There is an efficiency element to getting as far down as you can in as little time as possible, but this is mostly for multiplayer purposes. For single-player, it would be nice for there to be an option to disable it, as I really don’t care how long it would take to beat a level when I’m playing single-player, I want to get lost in the experience and the clock takes me out of it.

Cliffed is fun to play, and while the basicness of the game was a bit unexpected from IUGO, it was still a great experience, with a lot of that IUGO polish that’s come to be expected from their games. With only the clock being a distraction, Cliffed is a great casual-style game with a nice selection of features.