Crossy Road

Crossy Road is a single-input arcade game built on a simple idea: keep moving forward across an endlessly generated strip of roads, train tracks, rivers and grass without being hit or drowned. You tap to hop forward and swipe to move sideways. Traffic runs at varying speeds, logs and lily pads drift on the water, and trains arrive with only a brief warning light. The camera scrolls behind you, so hesitating too long is fatal in its own right, which keeps runs moving even when the path ahead looks risky. Runs are short, often under a minute, and the appeal is the immediate restart. Scoring is simply distance travelled, with coins scattered along the way. Those coins feed a prize machine that dispenses characters from a large roster, and many of the characters are more than skins: some change the terrain theme, the obstacles or the incidental audio, which gives collecting a purpose beyond appearance. The voxel art style is distinctive and the whole thing is legible on a small screen. The game is free with unobtrusive but regular advertising, including video ads offered in exchange for coins or a free character. Optional purchases remove ads and buy coins directly. There is no energy system and no timers, so you can play as long as you want. It is well suited to filling short gaps of time and to players who want an arcade score chase with no commitment. Anyone looking for depth, progression or a reason to keep playing for weeks will exhaust it fairly quickly.

Pro

• Controls reduce to a tap and a swipe, which makes the game immediately understandable while still leaving room for skillful timing against traffic and trains.
• Unlocked characters often change the environment theme and obstacles rather than only the sprite, giving the collection genuine variety across many runs.
• There is no energy meter or session limit, so you can play continuously for as long as you like without waiting on a refill timer.

Con

• Video and banner ads appear regularly between runs, and removing them requires a purchase rather than being an option offered within normal play.
• The core loop varies little once you have seen the main hazard types, so long-term interest depends mostly on chasing scores and collecting characters.
• New characters come from a randomized prize machine, which means specific ones you want can take a great many coins to actually obtain.