OneSingleLife review

What comes after death? For OneSingleLife, it's a credits screen followed by the realisation that you cannot play the game again. Much like real life, this game only gives you one chance to succeed, and once you fail – it's game over. You only have One Single Life.

The premise is very simple – jump from one building to another through tapping the screen once to initiate a run up and once more to make him jump. No points, no leader boards, only one life. The straightforward gameplay adds to the experience – all you have to do is make a successful jump. Each level greets you with a sign saying that x percentage of players will die in this level. Will you be part of that percentage, or will you break away from the pack and succeed? The game plays (hur) on the player's need to succeed and fear of failure. In fact, it's enjoyment is derived from the trepidation felt before each jump, and the knowledge that failure will mean death – forever.

Which brings me to my major concern – OneSingleLife is an entirely subjective experience. How willing are you to completely absorb yourself in the experience of life and death? For me I was highly immersed on my first run through, where my heart rate grew and my palms grew sweaty as I completed each level. But will someone else be as engrossed as I was? After all the game is just about getting the tiny avatar from one building to another, a concept that was created almost two decades ago. It really is a game that relies on the player's emotions, more so than the mechanics of the game itself.

Which makes OneSingleLife a hard game to score. On repeated play throughs the experience is diminished, where after a failed jump comes the grumble of having to wait for your iPhone to uninstall and reinstall it again – it's like a loading screen just a lot more convoluted. However as a first experience, the game placed me in a position so many other games fail to do today – to make me realise that the little man jumping from building, who fist pumps every time he succeeds and screams every time he falls, wasn't no longer a creation of FreshTone Games, but rather me. Whether you become him – is an entirely different question.