Light-It Up

Genre: Arcade / Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Light-It Up, released in 2018 on mobile devices, ported to Nintendo Switch in 2023, then ported to PlayStation 4 in 2024, is an Arcade-style Platformer where players only have two inputs: one to jump left, and one to jump right. Using this, they must jump from one geometric shape to another until they light up each shape in a stage.

The presentation here is simple but appealing, with a dark background and bright colors for the shapes that glow like they’re filled with neon, and with your character being a simple stick figure. This is all backed by a dreamy, synthesized atmospheric soundtrack that places the focus on the gameplay. Overall, there’s nothing impressive here, but it all works, and has a clean, appealing look.

The “simple but appealing” thing applies to the gameplay too. Even though you’re only jumping left and right, the level design is creative and varied enough to keep things interesting, and the physics decent enough that the jumping still feels good even though you’re only tapping one of two buttons.

You’ll regularly be introduced to level elements that interact in different ways, and the ability to do a mid-air double-jump, cling to any surface, and jump through blocks instead of just jumping away from them gives you just enough control that when you fail a level you feel it’s because you messed up, not the game. And what’s more, some of this game’s levels are tricky enough that they make for a surprising amount of challenge, especially if you want to collect the three stars in each level.

Is Light-It Up a game that will transform the Platforming genre? Definitely not. But it’s a fun little game, and for only $5 I think it’s well worth the price of entry. Platformer fans looking for something simple but still challenging should give this one a look.

tl;dr – Light-It Up is an Arcade-style Platformer controlled with only two buttons – one to jump left and one to jump right. Yet despite this simplicity, or perhaps because of it, this game is a surprisingly decent and challenging entry in the genre, and for only $5 it’s definitely worth trying out.

Grade: B

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