Jumping Jack is a platformer title where you play an adventurer named Jack trying to get to the gold at the end of the stage. Your main enemies are monkeys, but there are rhinos and natives and other obstacles thrown at you. All movement is done by jumping that is controlled with the single button. If you are not pushing a direction your man will jump in place. You die if you and an enemy or obstacle are on the same spot.

You score 10 points for each jump. A lot of the platforms are see-saw styled and if you jump on them with a monkey already on there, the monkey will fly off. You score 200 points for this. There are also more scarce white monkeys and these are worth 1,000 points. But this also goes the other way and if a monkey jumps onto your platform you will go flying.

Cherries are worth a 1,000 points. The mushrooms bounce you so you continue your jump.

There is also a bonus score that times down starting at 8,000 and an E-X-T-R-A bonus that scrolls through the letters at the top of the screen When you kill a white monkey you activate the letter that is currently selected. When you fill EXTRA you get a bonus man and it finishes the stage.

Each stage has a small bonus area. The Stage 1-1 bonus is a small mole that comes out once you start heading up the right side. If you come back down too soon, he goes back into hiding. Once he’s on the platform, head back down to get the money and a cool 5,000 bonus.

The tight section on this stage for me is the top right with the 2 cherries. It’s easy to get caught between the rolling rock and a couple of monkeys who really like to just hang out up there.

Stage 1-2 adds charging rhinos. If you are on a platform when they hit you will get thrown off. BUT, if you jump onto the rhino and ride him back off screen you will come back with the gold for an extra 5000 each x3.

Stage 1-3 has some natives shooting arrows at you that you need to jump over.

Stage 1-4 has phiranas that will roll over the logs to take you out. In the upper left there is a turtle you jump to take you off screen for the 5,000 points.

Stage 1-5 has some paths through trees. While in these trees you can’t jump over anyone. The top right section is challenging in that it is 2 tree sections long and you need to wait for a hole in the monkeys and also be aware of the birds come from the left.

After 1-5 you go to the bonus section to play a slot machine style game to get bonus points and then you start back at 2-1.

I just put up a first run score of 49,180.