First, every level has a pink axolotl, a salamander species that can be found near Mexico City, hidden in a usually hard to reach area. Sometimes the axolotl will be in plain view of the player, but just barely out of jumping reach. Other times, you may complete a whole stage without seeing one. Successfully reaching an axolotl causes it to jump off the stage and exclaim "thanxolotl!" which always manages to put a smile on my face. I'm glad the cheery amphibian is as happy as I am that I reached it.
Second, scattered through each stage are dozens of jewels for collecting. This is, perhaps, the goal I work towards completing the most. It's usually easy to figure out how to get all of the jewels, but then it's a matter of pulling it off. When I asked Tom what a Mexican jumping bean wanted with so much jewelery, he chuckled. "I think the general idea is you're just collecting them for your girlfriend," he said. "She was kidnapped at the start of the game, so you're trying to rescue her. You're kind of surprising her with all these diamonds and jewels."
Finally, each level has a minimum number of jumps you can complete it in. These par jump counts are the most difficult of the three challenges, and it's rare that I would complete one without actively planning a route. "Because you have acceleration and your momentum is important, you can't just pull up against walls and hold against them to go over," Tom explained. "You'll clip that wall and that will deduct some speed from what you're doing, which will then affect a jump later in the stage. Additionally, if you jump on an enemy's head, that doesn't count as a jump." If any of the par counts seem impossible to you, be assured they are not. Each jump count is manually tested and every stage is planned out with par in mind. That said, one of the levels I played on the plane trip to Boston had a par time of only 2 jumps. I'm not sure I'm hardcore enough for this iOS game.
