Krazy Bears – crazy fun game that tests your reflexes

Overview

I was a little over 18 when I signed up for my exam to take the driver license. The theory went well and the next step was the psychological evaluation. I thought it was going to be a boring experience but it was actually a very pleasant evaluation, I basically played several test games and it all went well. I remember specifically one game where on the screen several bubbles were falling down with different colors and you had to press one of the keys that corresponded to a particular color. After the test finished I asked the person evaluating me what was it good for and said it was a way to test my reflexes. A reflex is the (almost) instant automatic response your body has when a certain stimulus is given. Say an object is thrown towards your face, automatically you’ll raise your hand to protect your face and most likely close your eyes and turn your head. All in a split of a second. That’s an automatic reflex and these play an important role in driving and it can be tested/trained with a game.

Driving for 15+ years now, I had a lot of situations when my reflexes helped me avoid an accident. If you’re a driver for sure you encountered situations when an obstacle suddenly appeared and you had to avoid it by a quick turn of the wheel or pressing the brakes. This is where today’s game fits into, as it is a game that actually tests your reflexes while you have fun playing it. Named ‘Krazy Bears’, the game lets you control Chamy the chameleon while he tries to escape from the malefic bear Barry and his friends.

Design & Gameplay

I have to warn you that this game developed by sumalab is highly addictive. I started playing a few levels it to learn more about its gameplay and design but continued playing until I reached level 15 even if I already understood the gameplay and knew what the game is about. It’s that type of game that you start and just keep on playing because more and more challenges appear.

The game’s design is amazing, well chosen colors, great character design, detailed backgrounds and environments – all contribute to create a nice user experience right from the first level of the game. Details are impressive too, as an example in the game Chamy changes its color based on the color of the object it lands onto – just as a real-life chameleon it uses the environment to camouflage itself. This is one example but you’ll see in the game that mostly everything is well thought. Krazy Bears comes with its own soundtrack and sound effects as well that make the game even funnier (especially when you’re doing bad at the end of a level).

Here’s what Krazy Bears is about and how you play it:

Jump Chamy, Jump. The story of the game is that Chamy has to run from Barry and his friends. Doesn’t matter if it’s autumn, spring, summer or even winter (when bears are supposed to hibernate), Chamy has to be in a constant jump so that you finish a level successful. Each level (and there are about 20 per each world) has to be completed in under 60 seconds otherwise the game will end. You have 3 lives and each time you press the wrong color/object Chamy loses one. The controls are a breeze, basically you have to tap with your thumbs in the lower part of the screen on 2/4 colors to help Chamy jump to the next object – there’s a trick, the object Chamy will next jump to has to be of the same color and shape as the one you’ve just tapped on. If you tap on the wrong one, you’ll see the wrath of Barry.
That’s Barry watching you with his crazy eyes.
Five worlds, lots of levels. The game currently has 5 different worlds you advance through: Autumn Forest (it’s what you start with), Winter Woods, Spring Rush, Barry’s Birthday and Sun Stone. In time more will be added, but since a world typically has 20 levels that have to be finished in under 60 seconds you can imagine that’s almost two hours of continuous play considering that you finish a level in your first try. However, the levels increase in complexity and you also can replay one to improve your score, so if you take that into account you’ll get a lot more fun hours. Each world has a different background/design depending on what it is about – in autumn/winter you’ll get your typical wood leaves with colors that match the season, spring will blossom with beautiful flowers while the other 2 worlds carry surprises in terms of objects you’ll have to tap on.
5 worlds you can currently choose from.
New challenges. When you first start the game the rule is very simple, you have 2 leaves in the bottom left/right of your phone/tablet with 2 particular colors. In front of Chamy there is a sequence of alternating colored leaves and you have to help Chamy jump from one leaf to the other. You do that by tapping on one of those 2 leaves you have in the bottom screen depending on what color follows in front of Chamy, and he’ll jump if you tap on the correct one. The goal is to tap fast enough to finish before the 60 seconds are up and you see your progress at the top of your screen. Sounds easy, huh? Well every other level there will be an extra-challenge added that increases the difficulty of the game. For instance instead of 2 colors, you’ll have 4 colors to recognize fast enough and tap on. Or you’ll get leaves that have 2 colors (which means you’ll have to tap on 2 colors at once to jump), leaves that change their color after a few moments or even be able to choose between different routes. The last worlds introduce different objects, so not only you’ll have 4 different colors but you’ll have them on 4 different types of objects up to 16 different combinations you have to recognize fast enough. As I was saying, this increases the difficulty of the game and make it more challenging.
This level combines different objects with colors.
In-game coins, world records. Chameleons, if you didn’t know it, love dragonflies. It’s a ‘love to eat’ type of love, not something different. That’s why at the end of some levels if you’ve played well enough, aside the score you also get a number of dragonflies. These are sort of in-game coins, which you use to unlock certain levels. Each world has the last levels locked and requiring you to own a certain amount of dragonflies to unlock them. You can also purchase an unlock code (for almost a dollar) if you don’t want to hunt dragonflies. While the dragonflies are important, score is the main measurement of how well you’ve played that level. If you finish the game in the last quarter of the allotted time (i.e. last 15 seconds) Barry will do something nasty and you’ll recognize what by the sound it makes. But play well enough and you’ll even get combo bonuses (by tapping fast enough on consecutive colors) and you’ll see how well your current score stands out in the overall world score (meaning online ranking).
The progress is at the top of the screen where you’ll also see remaining time.
Special moves. As you progress through the game you’ll get some special powers. One of them is Fast Jump, an extra button that will show up between the objects you control from the bottom of the screen that when tapped on will help Chamy jump faster. Since time is important in finishing a level, jumping faster will help you with that. Rainbow is another special move that Chamy will enjoy as he’ll be able to move through a number of colors without having you tap on them. I only discovered the two but for sure there are many waiting in the upper levels.
Chamy and the rainbow.

I know a picture is worth a thousand words but a video is worth millions. So if you want to see how the game is played you can watch this quick video review of Krazy Bears:

Conclusion

Krazy Bears is crazy fun and addictive for humans as honey is for bears (or dragonflies for chameleons). With tens of levels available for free there’s no reason you shouldn’t download and play it as aside the fun part you’ll also get to test your reflexes. You do that not by simply going through each level in your own pace, but by trying to get a better time for each of those levels. My record for most levels had at least 4 digits, and that’s not good as it stands for the place you’re at in the online rankings, but I’m sure you can do better.

You can download the game directly from Google Play: Download Krazy Bears
Optionally you can visit their blog (if you speak Spanish) at http://www.sumalab.com/blog.html where you can read about their experience on creating an Android game and the challenges it comes with (from choosing the right tools to promoting the game).