New Game Promises “One Single Life”

The icon’s a gravestone with a graphic of a man jumping – that tells you pretty much everything you need to know about One Single Life, a new iPhone game available here.

It’s an odd one though – whilst playing much like a side on version of Mirror’s Edge (where the core mechanic involves you running and jumping) the twist is that when you fall, you die – permanently.

“The concept grew from a burning desire to capture the raw emotions we experience in real life but yet rarely see in computer games; anxiety, exhilaration, and genuine tension,” said Anthony O’Dempsey, Director of FreshTone Games.

“I wanted to make a game that forces me to answer that most honest of questions; Do I have what it takes when it matters most?”

It’s a tense game, for sure.  You’re offered a practice run, then the game starts for real – and if you fall (and you will, eventually) that’s you – you’ll need to delete the game and re-install it from the App Store.

Thankfully, it’s free.  A neat experiment: let us know how you get on in the comments…

32 Comments

  1. haha… sounds like a very annoying game… would be fun to try it out though…=) and no, i don’t think i have what it takes when it matters the most…

  2. Unless it’s a very easy game, this will piss people off no end.
    It’s one thing having to start again, but I probably wouldn’t bother with the re-installation over and over.

  3. I liked the idea….. untilI read it was like Mirrors Edge.

  4. Stupid idea, personally the user interaction withi-products is far too poor for such a high stakes notion.

  5. Got to level 5. Then died.

    • Sane here.

    • Same, I meant same.

    • Got to level 8! :-)
      Great game! I loved the tension it produced although the game play mechanics are really simple.

  6. That sounded interesting for about 20 secs. I think it would make more sence that if you died you couldn’t try again for x-amount time/days. Having to unistalling and reinstalling because you died sounds more like a bug than a game mechanic.

    • I agree, it sounds like a stunt to raise the publicity of the game.

  7. making it so you only have one life to complete the game is one thing, but this whole having to delete it and reinstall, just sounds like a gimmick to me.
    do they count the download if somebody downloads it more than once? because this would be an annoying way to boost download numbers.
    sure this game is free, but if the next game from whoever made this is promoted with something along the lines of “most downloaded game” then we’ll know why.

  8. you don’t need to reinstall…

    • Ok, I haven’t tried rebooting my phone but closing the app from the task manager does not return the game to a playing state. Unless there is some kind of secret that I didn’t find within 5 seconds you have to reinstall.
      Got to level 6. I must say the credits are the coolest thing about it. Just like with Flower, where the credits were part of a final level, this is an interactive way to make you watch the credits.

  9. Please, don’t let Demon’s Souls crew know about this!!! Running to the store to get a new game is not an option!!! lol.

    Seems like a good thing to try, sadly, don’t have an iOS device, gotta wait until they make it for Android or something.

  10. Sounds interesting but other than the reinstalling thing, how is this any different from games such as ‘I must run’?

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