Vex 4 — Play Free Online

Vex 4 is a stickman parkour platformer from Amazing Adam, the fourth entry in the Vex series. You guide a small runner through a chain of hazard-filled levels: spikes, saw blades, crushers, water and long gaps. The route is short on every screen, but nothing on it forgives a sloppy jump.

It is a different kind of jumper from the one this site is named after. Doodle Jump is an endless climb where one tilt of the wrist decides a bounce. Vex 4 is a hand-built course: you learn each obstacle, die to it a few times, and then clear it in one clean motion. Players who enjoy mastering a tricky stretch of Ovo 2 will feel at home here.

It runs in the browser with nothing to install, and a session can be as short as one level or as long as an evening of retries.

How to play

Move with the arrow keys or WASD, and use the mouse to aim and select in menus. On a phone, you tap and swipe instead. The aim is to reach the end of each level without touching a hazard. Mistakes send you back to the last checkpoint rather than the start, which keeps the retries quick.

A level is rarely a single jump. Expect to chain movement: run, jump, slide or climb, and drop onto the next platform without stopping. The skill is rhythm. Most deaths come from hesitating mid-sequence, not from a move being impossible.

Tips

• Stop and read the screen before you move. Most hazards can be seen in advance, and knowing where the next safe platform is saves far more lives than fast reflexes.
• Do not release the direction key at the top of a jump unless you mean to. Holding your heading through the whole arc makes landings far more predictable.
• When one section keeps killing you, break it into two small moves and land on a solid footing between them, instead of trying to do it all in one go.
• If you are on a keyboard, rest your left hand on WASD and use the other for the mouse. It keeps your movement and menu clicks from fighting each other.

Similar games on Doodle Jump

Ovo 2 is the closest relative: a precision platformer built around momentum and wall jumps. Fireboy and Watergirl swaps the solo run for puzzle-solving with two characters. Bird Jumper and Hoppenhelm are lighter, and Helix Jump is a one-button arcade drop if you want something less demanding.

Vex 4 suits players who like to practise one tricky section until it clicks. It works best on a keyboard, though the touch controls let you play on a phone or tablet too.