Epic Eric may just keep you up at Knight.
Taking the one-touch platformer to new levels of addictive, Epic Eric is a classic damsel in distress tale that has you swinging, jumping and in some cases flopping your way to the rescue.
Across the game’s three medieval environments, you’ll play as stalwart knight Eric as he attempts to reach his star-crossed lover waiting on the right hand side of the screen. To get there you’ll have to negotiate a number of moving platforms and spinning cogs and gears by tapping to hop from point to point.
Fall to the ground or fly helplessly off screen and you’ll have to start over again, although levels are never so long that the game becomes frustrating. Far from it, in fact.
Timing and momentum are Eric’s most important assets from the get-go. Every time you attach to a spinning cog, an arrow helpfully points the direction the knight will travel on your next jump. As levels get harder, you’ll come across cogs that move only with the speed of Eric’s jump, meaning you’ll have to work to prevent your momentum fizzing out or risk Eric’s quest ending face down in a puddle.
Add to the mix moving platforms which often double up as launchpads and three collectible stars that ask you to use cogs in interesting new ways and you’ve got a game that makes every successful manoeuvre feel sweeter than the kiss of a princess (or something less cringeworthy).
The game certainly has more than a little Mario to it, not just because you’re trying to save what seems to be Princess Peach’s lost twin sister, or even because each level ends with Eric sliding down a familiar flagpole. It’s also because Epic Eric is just as addictive, and inspires the same level of determination that’ll stop you from getting on with anything else until the brave knight is reunited with his swooning girlfriend .
Unfortunately, Epic Eric won’t take you that long to beat, with only a handful of levels to play through and stars that aren’t too taxing to reach once you’ve got into the swing of things.
However there are clearly plans to update the game with more stages later on, and it feels like Epic Eric is still very much at the tip of the iceberg, not just because of its currently limited environments but because of all the potential mechanics and puzzles that its simple, fun play style could accommodate in the future.
Overall, in terms of being a game thats easy to pick up and enjoy, all cogs are running smoothly where Epic Eric is concerned. Now we just need more of it. And possibly a Bowser ripoff.
Epic Eric is out now on iOS. Developer: 232 Studios Ltd Website
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