A majority of endless games- Canabalt, Tiny Wings, Hook Worlds, Air Supply-represent an escape scenario. Although everything is moving, nothing really moves. They must use randomly assembled landscapes and infinitely looping backgrounds to convey the sensation of moving through space, but trap the player in time, like Bruce Willis in 12 Monkeys or Tom chasing Jerry. This coupling of the landscape to the timeline, the body to the single moment, is a powerful dramatic device that we find cleverly compressed on the iPhone, which favors “endless” games like Bumpy Road. When you press forward, you spin the reel, and play the story. The passage of time resembles the unfurling of a film. The body standing in the middle of the screen indicates a specific point in time. Both games show that as the character moves left to right and the background changes accordingly, he is traversing a geographical space, which means that time is passing. In Shank, the man finds a poster in a bar advertising a wrestling match, fights through the bar, runs outside through the town and across its rooftops, and inevitably ends up at the wrestling arena, somewhere far to the right of the bar. In Limbo, the boy walks rightward through a dark forest that seamlessly leads into an industrial ruin and then a ghost town. Except when there is a puzzle to solve, or a gang of people to kill, respectively, when the body moves forward in these games, time also moves forward. Take the puzzle-platformer Limbo and the beat-’em-up Shank, two visually sophisticated games that tell linear stories. Recently in side-scrolling games, we see a newfound awareness of the character’s body in the world.

They depict events in a world, but they do not depict time. And so these games are about solving problems that reveal more problems to solve. Mario only moves forward when a problem has been resolved. As the character, Mario, moves forward, or the camera moves forward on its own volition and Mario must follow, as in the more nerve-fraying levels, more obstacles are uncovered on the screen. What happens in a side-scrolling game in the grand tradition of Super Mario Bros. Why playing it means feeling love, not love for the designers or the medium or the state of being meaningfully distracted or the sense of communion with everyone who does this or even the game itself, but love. I would like to describe, as a critic, why I find this game so affecting. I don’t disagree with you, he says, but what most strikes me about Bumpy Road is the way it captures time. They turn to a third game journalist who has been listening and nodding to this exchange.

This makes it unlike most games that scroll endlessly from left to right, which have you tighten your reflexes and chase the high score,” says the first. “Also, its central mechanic, touching the screen to bump the road, which causes the car to roll quickly down an accordion incline, slow down in a makeshift valley, and even fly into the air, encourages experimentation and play. Even though there are many cute games for the iPhone, this one has a nice style that feels fully realized, as if I’m playing a cute animation.”

“ Bumpy Roadis really cute,” says one, to which the other replies, “Yeah.

A bumpy road poster