AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! — A Reckless Disregard for Gravity has a title that sums it up pretty well. You, the nameless jumper, are on a mission: to leap from buildings with little worry about your personal safety and hug against said buildings for as long as possible. All the while, you’re attempting to land eloquently on a spot far below designated by a red circle. Plus, you don’t want to end up a pile of broken bones that once was your body. That’s bad for your health and all, ya know.

Essentially the levels in A Reckless Disregard for Gravity consist of jumping off a starting building and plummeting downward, avoiding that all too familiar sensation called pain coupled with fractured ... well ... everything. Free-floating buildings complete with beams and intersections are scattered throughout many of the environments making each shift in any direction a possibility for points or disaster.

Movement is controlled by either the arrow keys or W, A, S and D with camera movements designated to the mouse. Something I found interesting was your avatar’s movement depending on what direction you’re looking in. I’d fall faster or slower depending on if I was looking straight down or looking forward. That definitely added to giving a sort of strategic approach — not that I didn’t smoosh myself less often during A Reckless Disregard for Gravity.

But of course, smooshing aside, just what is it you’re trying to accomplish? Why would anyone jump off a building for the sake of points? Or in the case of A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, “teeth.” Well, that begs the question of why does anyone do anything, and who knows? Think of jumpers in A Reckless Disregard for Gravity as being the Tony Hawks of leaping off buildings. Unfortunately, there’s no getting up from a face plant if you leap off a building.

In A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, jumping is an extreme sport, complete with spectators and fans, which leads me to one of the features of the game: Flip-It Gloves. These handy gloves, once unlocked, allow you to see spectators strewn throughout different levels and either give them a thumbs-up or flip them the bird. Protesting spectators get the bird, and your fans get the thumbs-up. Give the right hand gesture to the right group, and you get a nice batch of teeth.

This is all good, and I found it a fun challenge to both locate the fans and pull off the right move, but what’s a bit of hand gesturing without trying to “stick it to the man” as well? In A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, once you’ve unlocked the spray paint, you can tag government buildings with different messages, also netting a good number of points.

In addition to all this building-collision avoidance, hand movements and spray paint fun, the complexity of the levels increases, as does the difficulty. Sure, I could’ve gone (as you can) through the levels ignoring the spectators, the buildings and government buildings for the most part, but then my score would’ve suffered.

With score (and subsequent ratings) being the game’s main priority, one feature that helps you, after you’ve unlocked it, is caffeine. During the craziness involved with keeping yourself alive, there can be complicated twists and turns of buildings. That’s where the caffeine comes in — it slows time so you can maneuver a bit more easily. This helps in those tough spots where you could splatter at any moment. Also, it helps on gaining a higher score through slower more precise movements.

And since the Steam version of the game offers Steam scores from other users (and holy crap, some peoples’ scores are nuts), I got a sense of accomplishment when I got a good score. Granted, what I saw as a good score versus the high scores didn’t quite match, but for the competitive high-score wanting jumper junkie, this feature of seeing others’ scores was a motivator to try a level just one more time.

I didn’t really get close to the top, but it adds that competitive edge that makes the game extend a bit more beyond just a single-player experience. Although, the single-player experience of A Reckless Disregard for Gravity didn’t mean going straight from level A to level B. The freedom A Reckless Disregard for Gravity gives you in how to approach a level extends to level selection itself. Levels are presented in a series of cubes, some grayed out until you unlock them and can be selected. As you play more levels, others can be unlocked with enough teeth, so you don’t have to play one specific level to continue.

I enjoyed that freedom; it gave me more variety in what sorts of levels I wanted to try. Though, to unlock the previously mentioned features, you do have to complete levels adjacent to the power-up/feature. Think of it like a massive connect the dots on which you can skip around.

Oh, and when you want to connect dots, you have to try not to fall to your death and make a squishing noise. Squishing noises weren’t part of the soundtrack, but I did find the soundtrack played a part in my not dying. Fast-paced tunes caused me to react more quickly, sometimes causing me to overshoot, or slow tempos made me go at a slower rate. Subtle suggestion from the music increased the challenge of the game, and that was a great piece that wasn’t necessary but added to the experience.

All in all, AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! — A Reckless Disregard for Gravity is unique, quirky and a great amount of fun. I’m still leaping off buildings now and then just to see if I can get the top spot. If you’re a casual gamer, you’ll enjoy the fact that you can play a level that’s relatively fast to get through then come back to another later. If you’re a hardcore gamer, you’ll enjoy the sheer number of different levels that there are to attempt to conquer and the challenges each gives you.

I, for one, really loved the game; it was different and funny. I played levels more than once just to get a higher score, and I felt really immersed in it. I’d definitely suggest picking it up if you want a large bit of bone-crunching joy.