Developed by Crazy Labs, a company that’s responsible for a number of popular mobile titles such as Run Sausage Run!, My Emma 🙂, and Dance School Stories, Light-It Up is a physics-based arcade game that is both fun and addictive. With almost 40 games on the Google Play Store alone, and most of which have been downloaded by millions as well as rated highly enough to make it into top 100 charts in several countries, Crazy Labs, under the umbrella of TabTale, has been known to provide uniquely entertaining games that are easy to learn yet very difficult to master.
Don’t let the stickman character and simple graphics fool you, the first few stages of the game may seem like child’s play but a lot of skill, planning, precision, and analysis will be required later on in the game. If you love a good challenge to test your wits and skills on your free time, then be sure to check Light-It Up out. You’ll come to discover that this simple yet smart game can get you hooked into it as you hope to finish some stages with a lot of retries.
Like no other stickman, Light-It Up puts you in the shoes of an agile, double jumping stickman that sticks to any surface of objects he touches (much like Spider-Man). Set in a dark world where all you see are various floating obstacles, your goal is to light it all up by making contact with each object on the stage. You gain points as you touch and make things glow, but for a perfect score, you must also aim to get all three stars in each stage. Sounds easy? Well it is on the first few stages or so, as the various colored shapes you jump and cling on to evolves to provide you with more complex but equally more fulfilling challenges as you move on to latter stages. It’s a game of precision, patience, and timing so keep your wits and skills about as you venture deeper into the game.
Light-It Up comes with an easy to learn tutorial as well as the simplest of controls. You only have two buttons to tap on to jump either left or right. You can also double jump and with an extra tap on either button while in the air for an extra boost and sticking to surfaces of any of the colored shapes on the stage comes automatically. The game has a great set-up for increasing difficulty one stage after another as the first one truly is very simple and the increase in the level of challenge is gradual.
Mastering the controls isn’t going to be an issue with any player, regardless of one’s experience in games. The more challenging part comes from precision and planning as later on in the game, you will rely more and more on mental calculations for each jump as well as learn to plan well ahead of time to determine a good route to take to complete each level. Beyond that, the stars which give bonus points are well within your reach on the initial stages, as you move towards the more challenging stages, it becomes an achievement left for the experts. If you want to finish all stages in the game or get 3 stars for higher points (and bragging rights) then our Light-It Up beginner’s guide can help you achieve that.
1. Take Note Of Jump And Double Jump Distance
One of the basic necessities to master the game is knowing fully well how far the stickman’s jumps and double jumps go. You may not fully appreciate it yet on the initial stages but a little later on in the game, high and long jumps which are based on your calculations can be a primary determinant if you will successfully complete a level or not. As simple as it goes, your jump in the game is constant all throughout as there are no power-ups or enhancements involved in the game. Despite the lack of wide open areas to test your jumps on the preliminary stages, there will be loads of opportunities later on to test it out.
Moving forward, you should aim to mentally see where you will land before you even make the jump, and the closer the actual results are to how you pictured it in your mind, the better it is you are getting. Beyond the basic jump forecasting comes the jump distance control you need to master when doing double jumps given that you can immediately perform the second jump right after launching the first one. Greater distances would, of course, require doing a second jump at the peak of the first one, but as you progress through the stages, there will be several instances where you will need to make adjustments as to when you will tap for the second jump.
You can also use double jumps to relocate yourself on the same object. By jumping right and doing a double jump to the left and vice versa, you can better situate yourself on the same object as there will be numerous instances where this becomes a necessity. It may be doing so to avoid touching the last object before getting the remaining star or stars for extra points. In some instances, it could be useful as well to get to a better spot to make a jump that would otherwise be difficult from where you were previously. Doing this fast enough on rotating objects that are peculiarly shaped can be advantageous to you as well. There will also be times when you have to do this very quickly on a moving platform to put yourself on a better spot before you reach the point where you have to make a precise jump. Be careful though as this is very hard to pull off on a fast moving object.
2. Take Time To Look At The Entire Stage Layout
As soon as you start to play a stage, the camera will automatically zoom in on where you are and it will be difficult to see the rest of the colored objects you need to touch as well as the stars you may want to grab. As such, make it a habit to take a bit of time and look at the entire stage before you begin playing.
Keep in mind as well that there will always be more than one way of completing a stage and you have a wide choice as to how you want to go about completing each one. Before you begin each stage, feel free to map out the whole stage and determine the best way you want to accomplish it. This is especially important if you want to collect all three stars on each stage, as you may accidentally touch and make the last object glow to complete the stage before you nab the remaining stars.
Just in case you don’t know where the starting point is, you’ll notice a bright white dot on the stage that’s a little smaller than the three stars and that is where you will spawn at the beginning of the stage. Take not as well that if the starting point is a little higher than the first platform you will spawn into, the force of your fall into the object will make it move downwards and occasionally, you will have to make another jump soon enough.
3. Take A Breather Whenever You Can
You have to be conscious enough to identify points in the game where you can relax for a bit. There are no time limits on stages anyway and the only times you need to pick up your pace are times when you are on a moving platform or an exploding one. As things become more and more dynamic in the game, there will be points in time where you can just hang on to one colored object and plan your next set of moves. Of course, it’s important to plan way ahead as you look into the entire stage layout before you begin each stage but then, there will still be situations when you have to wait to make a better jump or series of jumps
4. Timing Jumps Is Crucial
Mastering how to forecast where you will land is an important skill to have if you want to become an ace in Light-It Up. That is why it is important for you to have a good grasp enough of how far each of your jumps and double jumps will take you. Beyond that, the next higher level skill to acquire and master is knowing where you will exactly land when time becomes an element to your jumps. Jumping into and out of ordinary objects is one thing but doing so on rotating objects can be a little more challenging. Add that to how peculiarly shaped that object is and the challenge becomes even greater.
It often helps to count off inside your head as any object’s rotation comes to the point where you want it to be, whether you are jumping onto it or jumping out of it to another object. It may not have such a high impact on the earlier stages but later on it becomes a necessity to be very precise with your jumps so be sure to practice this early on.
5. Jump Out Of And Back Into An Object To Send It Moving
The basic method of making all objects glow and finish the stage is by touching them yourself as you jump across from one object to the next. You will surely notice early on that glowing objects can also light other objects up by making contact with each of them. As there are some situations when it is more challenging to jump over to the next object, you can always use a basic object as your vehicle and ride it out by jumping away from it and double jumping back. This is perhaps the best use of physics in the game as you will send the object moving to any direction depending on which side you touched it when jumping back in. It does have its limits as it is difficult to jump out and try to jump back in below the object, but keeping this mechanic in mind will help you through some difficult times.
Another common situation that makes this useful is when you are a little far away from the next object and jumping, or even double jumping may not be enough to reach it. By riding the object you are currently on, you can help get yourself closer to the target object and be able to make that jump.
6. Use Moving, Spinning And Exploding Objects To Light It Up
As basic as it seems, some early stages already hint of using some objects to light up other objects in the stage. Later on though, as the stage’s layout becomes more and more complex, it becomes a little more challenging to plan this as you go. However, as there will be more and more objects you will need to light up later on, you will have to rely on using these objects to make it easier for you. If you are on a stage where there are exploding ones, you may want to utilize those first and just clean up afterwards with the remaining unlit objects. As some moving objects may not necessarily require you to ride them to progress in the stage, you can use them instead to touch and light up some of the other objects in their path.
The precautions when utilizing these tactics lie in instances where you might accidentally light everything up before you collect all three stars. Be sure to take each star’s location beforehand, as you may not want to replay the stage just to try and nab all of the stars on the next play through. Additionally, there may also be times when moving as well as exploding objects push everything out of the way and leave you with hardly anything to use to get to the remaining unlit items.
That is all we have for our Light-It Up beginner’s guide and we hope that you have learned much from reading our tips and tricks. We’re all hoping to see future updates to the game and more stages to fill our need to play it more but for now, the simple tips and strategies we laid out should be enough to help you ace the game through to the very last stage. If you have some additional tips or strategies that you feel should be a part of our guide, you are very welcome to let us know through the comment section below!