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Games

Share Glorious Failure With Your Friends in 'Oopstacles'

'Oopstacles' is a wild obstacle course with a godly .gif game.

You know that feeling when something is so obvious and perfect a combination that when you actually come across it, it completely takes you by surprise? And on paper it totally shouldn't. It's past being predictable, but the fact that someone actually did it just stops you in your tracks. For me that's Oopstacles, a brightly-colored iOS runner from Crystal Pug. It's a game that almost had to be made eventually, because it's just so obvious, so perfect in what it is.

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Oopstacles will immediately look familiar to fans of Wipeout or similar obstacle-course challenge shows. Dropped at the start of an apparently endless path of randomized traps and gimmicks, players tap and hold the screen to move forward. Jumping is handled automatically, so the trick is entirely in the timing—understanding when to stop and when to charge ahead. This game will also feel familiar to anyone who's played Crossy Road or its many derivatives, right down to the free-to-play hooks. Collectible coins, prize boxes and purchasable avatars are a decent incentive to squeeze in a run here and there, and the optional ad-fueled elements (like bonus coins and limited resurrection) are both useful and unobtrusive.

Header and all Oopstacles screens courtesy of Crystal Pug

But all of this isn't even touching on what is without a doubt Oopstacles' best feature, and the element that helps keep it true to the goofy gameshows it's riffing on. When players inevitably eat it on one trap or another, the game offers the option to quickly and easily upload a gif of their downfall to save or share on social media. The various obstacles on each track can send avatars ragdolling all over the place when they get struck, mauled, or flung, which makes for some entertaining clips.

There's also a recording function available to help share full replays, complete with an optional facecam if you're really serious. Frankly, the only this whole sharing package could be better is if it offered the option to export those knockouts as a movie with extra cartoonish sound effects and a hammy announcer cracking the most relevant dad jokes in his limited repertoire overtop of it all.

Actually, they may have made the right call on that one.

Oopstacles is available for free in the App Store.