Mountain Goat Mountain: Quick Review

     Developer Zynga has brought us a strangely alluring game with Mountain Goat Mountain.  It can only be described as an endless climber- with the goal being getting as high an altitude up the mountain as possible before succumbing to one of many possible dooms.

         

     Beginning with a single goat, players must traverse their way up an isometric mountain, as far up as you can get collecting coins, using spring-boards, avoiding traps, and even finding the power-up springs giving the goat a silver coating impervious to harm.  Tap one side of the screen to hop up in that direction, swipe down on that side to head down in that side's direction.  It's very intuitive and simple.

     The things standing in your way are random items rolling down the mountain, crumbling platforms, deadly hidden precipices, lightning storms, and waters.  Players must also be consuming grass to fuel the goat's energy to ascend the dangerous peaks, but no one need to worry, there are plenty of patches that are automatically eaten when stepped on.

     The mountains vary in looks as you can unlock more goats through either in game coins collected, resulting in random chances as new goats in crates, or through the IAP of a mere 99 cents for a goat of your choice.  Zynga has provided a nice variety of differing goats and corresponding locales.  There's a Samurai goat with a lush environment, a cowboy goat with an old west theme, and my favorite, the holiday goat with a blue-tinged snowy wonderland.  The only goat I actively disliked was the Infrared Goat, whose mountain was in heat-vision color tones that actively hurt my brain.
     I mean really, the VR Goat (pic below) and Unicorn Goat (the rainbow-trailed goat pic above) levels are such a joy to play it's really, really hard to not recommend this to anyone.

     The simple controls and a cartoonish nature are quite deceiving here, as the game is extremely well done.  The colors are vibrant, the worlds are full and ever-changing, and it is an absolute delight to play.  Aside from it's ridiculously redundant title, Mountain Goat Mountain is an amazing time-waster in the fashion of old Q-Bert-ian block-hopping goodness.