AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!: A Reckless Disregard For Gravity—or Aaaaa! for short—takes all the fear out of falling. The first time you peek over the ledge of a skyscraper, you might pause; when you first leap over the edge and start your descent, you may tense up. But then you ease into it, getting used to the physics as you drift near buildings for a “kiss” or stick close for “hugs.” You start to get analytical: Which plummeting route nets you the most points, and gives you the most chances to flip off protestors or tag a municipal building with graffiti? Should you aim for the score plates, or are they distracting you from better options? And can you rack up a perfect five rating for your jump, or will you skid past the landing spot and shatter every bone in your body?
Dejobaan’s last title, The Wonderful End Of The World, showed style and humor, but its difficulty spikes, sparse content, and clear debt to Katamari Damacy held it back. Aaaaa! improves on that previous effort in every way. Aaaaa! is fantastically stylish: Skyscrapers and abstract art hang in mid-air, while the backdrops evoke a psychedelic neon dataverse. The dozens of levels keep adding new variations, like hugging the side of a mountain slope, skimming through moving structures, or smacking into birds, which earns an extra bonus. And the difficulty is scaled to let most players reach a safe landing, while the best ones fight for the top slots on the leaderboards.
But most of all, Aaaaa! scores on style. From the made-up lingo to the flirty backtalk and insider gags, it plays like an underground skating or Parkour flick—but one that’s made for an imaginary sport instead of a real one. The attitude informs everything from the humor and the bizarre video segments to the scoring mechanism, and it makes each jump feel like a radical act committed just for laughs. If teenagers in some futuristic, skyscraper-plagued city actually played this sport, they would really get off on this.