App Spotlight: Junk Jack

If Minecraft has shown us one thing, it’s that people enjoy building things when they’re given infinite tools, but love the aspect of working for them, crafting them, and placing them in a way they’ve conjured up. Junk Jack does this – in 2D, low pixels, and beautifully.

Junk Jack is a game that I’ve been playing for about a month now and I’m nowhere near done exploring its caves, going through the ins and outs, and especially, building. The game is done in a way that you’d think would’ve been done by now, but hasn’t. There are games like Terraria, but there’s no weapons of that level in this game. You build, you mine, you craft – that’s it. You start off with nothing but your hands to mine dirt and eventually wood and with those tools, you make your first shovel and the journey begins there.

As you go, you find small chests or crates that have tiny pieces of paper in them. On these pieces of paper are recipes that show you how to make numerous tools, ornaments, furniture, everything. You find yourself needing certain tools to break certain bricks, wanting to light your room with green fire as opposed to the standard red, and you get to do that. As with Minecraft, you need to create the necessary tables to craft certain things. It’s not hard to get the requirements for each table and with the game managing to suck you in over and over with your dying need to build, it won’t be long before you have every table built and ready to go.

This is one game that I’ve enjoyed through and through. Days upon days. I have it on my iPhone to accompany me whenever I’m bored, whenever I think about something that would be neat to build, and the best part is – it’s all right there in my pocket. You can get Junk Jack on the App Store for $2.99.