Sawbuck Gamer is our daily review of a free or cheap game ($10 or less).
Being a video game pedestrian is a hazardous job. Just think of the countless innocent citizens plastered to the bumpers of speeding sports cars in Grand Theft Auto’s Liberty City, or the legions of amphibians reduced to roadkill in the bloodbath known as Frogger. They don’t fare much better in Let’s Go Jaywalking.
It’s your job to shepherd a group of 25 stickmen and stickwomen across eight lanes of automotive hell. You take control of one stickperson at a time—weaving and jumping through traffic to reach safety on the other side of the highway. During particularly close calls, time slows down for a single nail-biting second as your stickfigure’s life hangs in the balance. You can also snag a few powerups to tip the scales in your favor, including boots which give you a temporary speed boost and traffic cones that will clog a lane of vehicles for a few precious seconds. At the end of the level, you’re given a score based on how many or pedestrians you’ve managed to get across, with time subtracted and bonus points awarded for particularly close brushes with death. When you’re done, you start all over again, closing the Sisyphean traffic circle. It’s an addictive formula with a surprising amount of mileage and a clear lesson: On the video game road of life there are passengers, there are drivers, and there are those left behind as bloody skid marks.
It was fun chicken-walking all way across the street, only to make it in the nick of time, bad-ass style.
I guess it made me less anxious than your average game of Froggo, if only because the outcome of impacts were squishier and more satisfying.
10 out of 25. I’m a far better jaywalker than I am jaywalking supervisor.
Only 6 out of 25 here. So much stickman blood on my hands…
11 here.
My favorite part is picking up traffic cones in the hopes that after my current avatar is inevitably smushed the next will have a lane of glorious non-death.
10 out of 25 the first time, 17 the second. I tried to minimize the carnage, but sometimes you can’t help but get that deer in the headlights feeling…
Bloody skid marks seem like the kind of thing you should tell your doctor about.
I really wonder, sometimes why 25 suicidal people would all flash mob at a busy street. Unfortunately, I was distracted during part of my first time playing and only one made it. This lonely survivor was probably angry that he made it alive.
Those poor stick figures…
Nice article. Thanks for writing about my game.