What Sky Hopper is
Sky Hopper is a vertical jumper: your character bounces on its own, the view scrolls upward with you, and falling off the bottom of the screen ends the run. Height is the score. Platforms come in several kinds — solid ones, crumbling ones that give way after a single bounce, clouds that fade and vanish, moving ones that will not be where you aimed by the time you arrive, and springs that launch you much further than a normal bounce.
The bounce itself keeps its rhythm the whole way up; what changes is the layout. The higher you climb the more sparsely the platforms are placed, the narrower the margins get and the greater the proportion of them that crumble, fade or move. The game gets harder by changing what it puts in front of you rather than by speeding you up.
How it plays
On touch you can either hold the left or right side of the screen to steer, or drag to fly directly. The drag is analogue rather than simply left-or-right: a thumb near the middle steers gently and nearer the edge steers hard. The bounce itself is automatic and needs no input. On a keyboard, A and D or the arrow keys steer. P pauses and M mutes.
Getting better at it
Steering continues while you are in the air, so the jump you are currently making is still yours to adjust — you are not locked into where it started. Looking further up the screen as well simply gives more time to pick the next platform and line the approach up, rather than deciding once you are already beside it.
Springs launch considerably higher than a normal bounce, so one can skip a whole stretch of closely spaced platforms. Whether a sideways detour to reach one is worth taking depends on what is between you and it.
Steering is analogue, so a hard swing across the screen carries further than a small correction and can drift past a narrow target in the other direction. Because the platforms get narrower and more sparsely placed with height, small early corrections have more room for error than late large ones.
Who it suits
The bounce is automatic and the only input is steering, so the game asks for one axis of attention rather than two. There is no ending to reach: the climb is endless and the score is the height you got to.
The analogue steering is worth exploring deliberately. Because how far your thumb sits from the centre changes how hard you steer, a slow drift across a gap is available as well as a full swing — useful when the platform you are aiming for is narrow.
Questions
Do I control the jump?
No, bouncing is automatic. Steering left and right while airborne is the only input, and it stays available for the whole of a jump.
What are the different platforms?
Solid platforms behave normally, crumbling ones collapse after one bounce, clouds fade and vanish, moving ones slide, and springs launch you considerably higher.
Is there an ending?
No. The climb is endless and the score is how high you got before falling.
At a glance
- Genre
- Arcade, vertical jumper
- Players
- One
- Controls
- Hold a side or drag on touch; A/D or arrow keys
- Saves
- Best height kept in this browser
- Cost
- Free, no account, nothing to install