Doodle Jump Platforms, Power-Ups and Monsters: What Every Doodle on the Page Does

Doodle Jump looks like it has one rule — don't fall — but the page is full of small drawings that each behave differently, and most lost runs come from treating two of them the same. This is what each one does in the build on this site.

The four platforms

Green platforms are solid and never move. They are the majority of the page and the only ones you should plan a route around. Blue platforms slide from side to side; they hold your weight, but where they are when you leave the last platform is not where they will be when you arrive, so aim at the point they are moving toward. Brown platforms are drawn with a crack down the middle and crumble the instant you touch them, giving no bounce at all — a brown platform is a hole with a picture on it. White platforms give a normal bounce and then vanish, so they are fine to use once but useless to fall back onto.

Springs, propeller hats and jetpacks

A spring sits on top of a platform and gives a much bigger bounce than the platform alone. It is the smallest boost and the only one that requires an accurate landing — you have to hit the spring itself, not the platform beside it. A propeller hat lifts you for a few seconds; a jetpack carries you much further, long enough to skip whole screens. Both are picked up by touching them in the air; the achievement list even has a 'monster chopper' entry for flying into a monster with the propeller hat on, so a boost is the safest way past a crowded stretch. You can still steer during a flight, and you should: the moment the boost ends you drop like normal, so line up a platform before it does.

Monsters, UFOs and black holes

A monster kills you on contact from the side or below, and dies if you land on its head from above or hit it with a shot. Press Space (or click) to fire; the shot goes straight up, or toward the pointer if directional shooting is switched on in the options. The UFO hovers with a beam underneath it and abducts you if you drift into the beam; it can be shot like a monster, and jumping on it is its own achievement. A black hole cannot be shot or jumped on. Steer around it, never through it, and give it a wider berth than the drawing suggests.

The sounds are information

A monster or UFO plays a warning sound before it scrolls onto the screen, and a breaking platform has its own crack. Play with the sound on for the first few sessions; the warning gives you about a second to get a shot in the air before the thing arrives.

What changes as you climb

Below 5,000 the platforms are placed randomly. Above 5,000 the game starts inserting hand-built sequences, and from 15,000 it draws them from a harder set with wider gaps and more moving platforms. If a stretch suddenly looks designed — a staircase of blue platforms, a corridor of brown ones — it is, and it is worth slowing your steering and reading it rather than reacting.