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Falling from the sky. Collecting coins. Avoiding flying animals. If you are sitting around on your Android device, Skydive Survive is a quick, fun and easy game to learn and play. However, mastering the game is a challenge of its own.

Similar to  Flappy Bird and Temple Run, Skydive Survive is an endless scroller where you fall through the sky, collect coins, avoid obstacles and attempt to keep going as long as possible. These are the types of games I enjoy playing. I find it fun attempting to beat my personal high scores and comparing them with friends and family.

Skydive Survive was developed by a GV student with the help of some friends. Brandon Weeks, a sophomore computer science major, learned how to build Android games on his own after getting laid off from a job in the automotive industry.

“After a couple weeks of brainstorming, we finally came to the conclusion of making Skydive Survive,” Weeks said. “I slowly started working on it, then once I got more time, I spent twelve hours a day trying to figure out how to do everything.”

He wanted to make sure Skydive Survive was different from other endless scrollers.

In addition to Skydive Survive, he has also made Vaccinate the Baby, Carl the Caterpillar and Color Grid+, which are all available on the Google Play Store. Weeks created the brand OFGB Games for the apps he develops.

I opened Skydive Survive without knowing what to expect. Fun music plays in the background, and there are three sections on the main page: start, upgrades and options. I first went into options expecting to find a description on how to play the game. However, it was nowhere to be found, so I decided to jump right into the game.

My character began free-falling, and I started to tap and swipe my screen to attempt to gather coins and avoid the flying pigs and cows. Almost instantly, I lost my three lives. It turns out the game uses the tilt sensor in your device to control your character as he is flying through the air. It took me about 10 minutes and quite a few restarts to understand the game and all the power-ups.

I took a break to explore the Upgrades section. There, I found three more sections for characters, items and extras. I tapped the characters page first. The one character that is unlocked at the start is named Mann. Right now, there is one more character available to purchase with coins earned in the game, and there are two more coming soon.

Next, I went to items. This showed me there are seven items available to upgrade using coins you earn from the game. The power-ups are like the ones seen in Temple Run, such as magnet power-up, where the coins automatically get picked up by your character. There are also power-ups you want to avoid, like balloons that will make you float back up into the sky and lose some progress that you made.

The extras section was just a page dedicated to rating the game and liking it on social media. I wished there was a place with a description on how to play because I am not a fan of jumping into a game without knowing what is going on.

Skydive Survive is by no means an easy game. As you are moving your character back and forth to collect coins, you must avoid the flying animals, which are the same size as your character. There are times when the animals would be side-by-side, making it extremely difficult to squeeze between them, and resulting in a lost life. This was my one issue to an otherwise great game. Some of the aspects are goofy and fun, so it makes sense to have cartoon-like graphics. The app also runs smoothly, and there doesn’t appear to be any glitches, except for my reflexes. 

If I had to rate Skydive Survive I’d give it a 4 out of 5 stars. It exceeded my expectations for a game developed by a college student. I would like to see the game available for iOS devices so more of my friends can enjoy it as well. Skydive Survive is fun, challenging and addicting, as all games should be.