

As those skills start to register, Crossy Road gets its hooks into you-but it’s the social component that seals the deal. It’s important to learn some essential tactics to play at a high level: sprint whenever possible, avoid the edges, and seriously, play in landscape to get a better view of traffic patterns on either side. You’ll need to be constantly aware of your surroundings as you tap to move forward one lane at a time-or swipe to move to either side or backwards-as trucks and trains whiz by and logs float into view. Much as I prefer one-handed play in most cases, the wider frame is a huge help with reading traffic patterns.

You can play in portrait or landscape view. And you can’t linger in one spot for more than a few seconds, otherwise the game ends. Here, there’s no goal at the end of the stage, along with no set pattern of roads and rivers: everything is randomly generated, which means you’ll face a new challenge every time. It’s a great challenge: As in Frogger, Crossy Road is a straightforward game of timing and reflexes, but that doesn’t stop it from being a difficult game to really excel in. Why have scads of iOS gamers crossed the road since the game launched in late November? Here are three reasons why you should download this amazing freebie and find out. But ultimately, the biggest perk is the alluring twitch gameplay, which finds you sprinting through traffic and bounding across floating logs while friends’ scores taunt and encourage you. I’d be happy to, but it just hasn’t come up across hundreds of attempts. But while Crossy Road may tweak the familiar approach from a gaming classic, it doesn’t feel lazy or hacked together.Ĭrossy Road should look familiar, but there are lots of surprises. Some characters change the world around them-a penguin might douse the stage with snow, while this gravedigger does his road crossing at night.Ĭrossy Road is charming, with vivid block-based artwork that surely owes some debt to Minecraft, and it’s also one of the friendliest free-to-play games I’ve ever enjoyed. I’m emotionally invested, and it’s all over a game that essentially turns Frogger into an endless action game with social hooks. Every amazing run (rare as they may be) makes my heart thump like mad with each tap.
