Canjump

One button. That's the entire control scheme in Canjump, and it's why the game works: with nothing to manage except when to jump, every failure is unambiguously a timing error you can see coming on the next attempt. You play a monster picking its way across terrain that keeps adding obstacles and enemies, chasing a score rather than an ending.

How to play

Watch what's approaching, jump at the right moment, repeat until you don't. Because the only input is a jump, the skill is entirely in reading the gap ahead and committing a fraction of a second early or late. The common beginner mistake is jumping the instant something appears on screen, which spends the jump too early and drops you into whatever comes next.

Tips

• Look further ahead than the thing you're about to clear — the obstacle after it decides whether you land safely.
• When the pace picks up, don't speed up with it. The timing windows stay the same length, and panic-tapping ends more runs than the obstacles do.
• Restart straight away after a death instead of reading the score screen; the rhythm is still in your hands for a few seconds.

Who it's for

This suits score-chasers and anyone who likes a game they can understand completely in one attempt and still fail at twenty times. Runs last a minute or two, so it fits a coffee break rather than an evening, and it's set up for desktop rather than a phone screen. Gelatino asks for the same read-ahead timing if you want something with more to steer, and Parmesan Partisan is the step up when one button stops being enough.