JUMANJI: The Curse Returns is a mobile app that's been dumped on Steam as if it was a real PC game (it's not)... it's a cash grab from greedy mobile devs. This mobile app is a weird mix of the 1990's film (which had a boardgame) but alludes to the characters from the more recent two films (starring "The Rock" and "The Jack Black" etc). So I guess they got a bit mixed up, but then these are mobile app developers, so we shouldn't really try to hold them to a high standard. After all, if they knew what they were doing, they wouldn't be developing for iPhones. And yet, here we are, reviewing yet another mobile app dumped like so much garbage onto Steam for a price gouge.

Surprisingly this does reflect the plot of the film to a limited extent... the game has two phases. The first phase, you'll be rolling the dice on the titular Jumanji board, with the aim to get to the middle. And, just like the movie, when you land on something, it unleashes a horde of wild animals somewhere in town. This is where we move to the second phase of the game loop, which is a really dumbed down card battler as you use tennis rackets and torches and other things to defeat the horde of monkeys/bats/rhinoceroses. Finish them off then it's back to the boardgame to roll the dice and repeat the loop. Fair enough, I guess that's pretty deep for a mobile app. But not that deep. The overall gameplay is fairly shallow and seriously repetitive.

From a technical perspective, as a mobile app, this doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.

The mobile app features low-polygon "retro" assets with cartoony, mobile app style shader effects, making this look like a barely functional mobile app from 15 years ago. This visual style is a method that lazy devs often use when they have a lack of interest/capability to create highly detailed, high poly models and instead use shader effects to disguise that shortcoming under the name of "art", or "We made it look bad on purpose", which really isn't something gamers should have to put up with. It's unclear why the developers weren't willing to arrange high quality, high polygon count contemporary assets and high resolution textures for the mobile app. It's far below the state of the art visuals gamers expect as a result of their decisions.

The controls can't be customised because the game has such a dumbed down, simplified interface that it's just iPhone screen tapping stuff. The fact that the interface is this dumbed down might be seen as a problem in itself, however... this is a fairly shallow experience if you're the kind of gamer that likes to play games with deep, rich control schemes and interaction. You'll get none of that here.

Because this is a mobile app, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the iPhones that the mobile app was designed for. These are unfortunate handicaps and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was an afterthought for the iPhone developers who are to blame for this. The mobile app is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for mobile phones forces upon a game. Once more, mobile devs have made gaming worse for everyone. I didn't spend thousands on building a gaming rig just so I could pretend it's an iPhone.

These technical defects push this mobile app below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.

The poor quality of this mobile app is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 11 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality mobile app is to be expected.

So, should you buy this mobile app? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ games on Steam?

Once more we see greedy mobile devs trying to scam PC gamers. On Steam, this is $15 USD, on app stores, it's $5 USD. Mobile devs must learn PC gamers are not here to be gouged, and can't be expected to pay THREE TIMES THE PRICE for an already overpriced mobile app just because it's been lazily dumped on Steam. This is unacceptable disrespect for PC gamers. Because this is a mobile app, is priced to insult and gouge PC gamers, and because of the other defects, it's impossible to recommend.

FIFTEEN BUCKS FOR A MOBILE APP.

Just who do they think we are?

Stupid game. First off, it gives you multiple notifications about the purchasable DLC.

Then there's the gameplay. Cheap mobile game stuff.

Why is this on Steam?

This game really lack content. This is a disappointing adaption coming from Marmalade Game Studio.

There is basically no diversity in mini games and the overall game design is bad. It feels as if the studio is not serious in developing the game and instead tries to rely on Jumanji's fame to attract buyers.

The full price of this game is outrageous for the content provided. The studio made the right move to give a 95% off discount during certain sales.

I also want to point out that you can 100% this game in around 2 hours if only there isn't any achievement breaking bug that arrived as a package with the latest update (You need to tweak the system so that the game reverts to the previous build in order to get 100% achievement, check the steam guide for more info).

It's crazy how a developer as reputable as Marmalade could release a game containing such a bug even though the content was as if it's merely a demo. What's crazier is how they had not fixed said error after around 3 years.