Rayman Jungle Run

Pastagames, the French studio that helped Ubisoft with Rayman Origins, took that game’s hand-drawn UbiArt Framework art and squeezed it into a phone game you play with one thumb. Rayman Jungle Run landed on iOS on September 20, 2012 and on Google Play a week later, on September 27, priced at $2.99. Apple made it a free gift in its 12 Days of Christmas promotion in 2013, which pushed it onto a lot of iPhones.

What Is Rayman Jungle Run

Rayman runs forward on his own, and the player decides when he jumps, glides, runs along walls or punches. That sounds like an endless runner, but every level is designed by hand with a fixed start and finish, closer to a short platform stage that happens to scroll by itself. The game was split into world packs of 10 levels each, and the first packs each introduce a single skill so you learn one thing at a time before the game mixes them together.

How Lums And Skull Teeth Drive Rayman Jungle Run

Each level holds exactly 100 Lums, the glowing yellow collectibles from the main Rayman games. Finishing is easy. Collecting them all is the real game, because the Lum trails mark the ideal route through every jump and wall run. Your Lum count earns a Skull Tooth at the end:

• 8 Lums for a green tooth
• 45 Lums for a blue tooth
• All 100 Lums for a red tooth

Five red teeth in a world unlock its Land of the Livid Dead stage, a brutal bonus level with no Lums at all where one mistake sends you back to the start. Collecting all ten red teeth in a world earns a crown and a short cinematic.

Worlds And Updates After Launch

The opening packs are each built around a single skill, such as jumping, gliding with Rayman’s hair helicopter, wall running or punching. Ubisoft then added free content: a December 2012 update brought 10 more levels, and an April 2013 update added 20, with packs such as Pirate Ship, Giant Plant and a Potpourri set mixing every skill. In total the game counts 6,300 Lums, which gives completionists plenty to chase.

What Players And Critics Said

Reviewers praised the art, the music and how much skill the one-button scheme hides, and many called it the best-looking platformer on phones at the time. Common complaints were the short length of the original release and the difficulty spike in the Livid Dead stages. On fan forums such as RaymanPC, players still trade routes for perfect Lum runs and discuss which update content is missing from other versions.

Can You Still Get Rayman Jungle Run On Android?

Rayman Jungle Run is no longer sold on Google Play, and Ubisoft has delisted every mobile version. An early 2019 update removed some features, and around the end of 2019 Ubisoft pulled both Jungle Run and Fiesta Run from the App Store, telling players they were no longer available on iOS. On Android, players later reported that the game’s extra gallery files would not download, which could stop it from launching. Because the last Android build dates from January 2019, it may not install at all on newer phones that only run 64-bit apps.

The one official edition still on sale is a PC release on Ubisoft Connect from December 2022.

Tips For A First Run Through The Jungle

Jump early rather than late, since Rayman’s hop carries further than it looks. Hold the button to glide when you see a Lum trail curving down, and in wall-run levels keep your thumb steady until the trail turns. Treat the Livid Dead stages as practice pieces, learning one section at a time, because there are no checkpoints.