Game review
Pronto
6.7 / 10
- Developer
- Markus Fisch
- Publisher
- Independent
- Released
- 1 January 2018
- Platforms
- Web browser (desktop and mobile)
- Genre
- Arcade
- Monetisation
- Free, open source, no ads and no in-game purchases
- Players
- Single-player only
The short version
Pronto is exactly what its own author calls it — a very simple reaction game. A low-poly 3D path zigzags away from you, and the only input is a single tap: time it right and you jump onto the next stretch of path, time it wrong and you fall. That one mechanic was confirmed working cleanly through real simulated touch, including the full loop of jumping, falling, seeing a score screen, and tapping again to restart. What keeps this out of "very good" territory is exactly what the discovery notes flagged as the risk going in: there's nothing else here. No steering, no branching path, no second mechanic — just one timing check, repeated until you miss.
Biggest strengths
- The single tap-to-jump mechanic was tested directly with real simulated touch rather than assumed from the code — a tap correctly triggered the jump animation, a mistimed tap correctly ended the run with a score screen, and a follow-up tap correctly restarted the game
- Clean, confident low-poly WebGL presentation with real-time shadows for a 13-kilobyte budget — a distinct visual identity rather than a generic 2D reaction game
- No platform gate; `ontouchstart` is wired unconditionally alongside the mouse/pointer path, matching the author's own "works on your mobile too" description
Biggest weaknesses
- There genuinely is only one mechanic — tap, jump, land or fall — with no steering input, no secondary obstacle type, and no structural variation between runs beyond the path's own random zigzag. The author's own README calls it "very simple," and that's an accurate, honest description rather than modesty
- A score-chasing loop this thin has a low ceiling for how long it holds attention; there's nothing to unlock, learn, or master beyond reaction time itself
- Small original audience (4 GitHub stars) for what is, even by js13k's own compressed standards, one of the more minimal entries in its category
Who it's for: Anyone who wants a genuinely tiny reaction-game palate cleanser between other games
Our recommendation: Solid, honest execution of a very small idea; not quite enough on its own to clear this shelf's bar
6.7 / 10
Some js13k entries use their 13 kilobytes to cram in as much game as possible; Pronto spends its budget on a single idea, rendered cleanly, and stops there. A low-poly path curves away into the distance, a little cube of a character advances automatically, and the only thing you control is when to tap. Time it with the path's rhythm and you land on the next segment; miss, and you fall into the void below. That's the entire game, and the author's own description — "very simple" — undersells nothing.
The one mechanic works, confirmed directly
Because the whole experience rests on that single input, this review tested it rather than took it on faith. A real simulated touch tap correctly triggered the jump — visible in a follow-up screenshot as the character mid-air, clear of the path it had been standing on — and letting a later tap land at the wrong moment correctly ended the run with a "You made 0 points!" screen. A further tap on that screen correctly reset the path and put the character back at the start. Every piece of the loop a player would actually touch on a phone was exercised directly, not inferred from ontouchstart existing in the source.
The one real defect this pass found wasn't in that loop at all: the page shipped referencing a service worker, a web manifest, and an icon set that all lived in a separate build output folder rather than next to the actual game files, throwing a page error on every load. It didn't stop the game from running, but it's a real bug rather than a cosmetic one, and it's fixed in this listing by bringing those files alongside the game they belong to.
Thin, and honestly so
What Pronto doesn't have is anything beyond that one mechanic. There's no steering to add a skill dimension beyond timing, no second obstacle type, no level structure — just an increasingly fast, randomly zigzagging path and your own reaction time. That's a perfectly reasonable scope for a jam entry built to a strict size limit, and it's honestly presented as such by its own author, but it leaves this one short of the sustained appeal this shelf is looking for, however cleanly the one thing it does actually works.
Should you play it
For a minute or two between other games, sure — it's a clean, well-built example of doing one small thing correctly, confirmed to work exactly as intended on a touchscreen. Just don't expect more than that one thing.
Pros and cons
Pros
- The single tap-to-jump mechanic was tested directly with real simulated touch rather than assumed from the code — a tap correctly triggered the jump animation, a mistimed tap correctly ended the run with a score screen, and a follow-up tap correctly restarted the game
- Clean, confident low-poly WebGL presentation with real-time shadows for a 13-kilobyte budget — a distinct visual identity rather than a generic 2D reaction game
- No platform gate; `ontouchstart` is wired unconditionally alongside the mouse/pointer path, matching the author's own "works on your mobile too" description
- Free, public domain (Unlicense), no ads, and no analytics anywhere in the code
- Fixed a real (if non-blocking) bug found during testing: the shipped page referenced a service worker, manifest, and icon set that lived in a sibling build folder rather than alongside the actual game files, throwing a page error on every load
Cons
- There genuinely is only one mechanic — tap, jump, land or fall — with no steering input, no secondary obstacle type, and no structural variation between runs beyond the path's own random zigzag. The author's own README calls it "very simple," and that's an accurate, honest description rather than modesty
- A score-chasing loop this thin has a low ceiling for how long it holds attention; there's nothing to unlock, learn, or master beyond reaction time itself
- Small original audience (4 GitHub stars) for what is, even by js13k's own compressed standards, one of the more minimal entries in its category