The floor is lava in this platformer inspired by a favorite childhood game.
Hot Lava is a new mobile game on Apple Arcade, Apple’s recently-launched game subscription service. The action-platformer is inspired by the childhood activity “the floor is lava,” which sees kids (or adults) jump between pieces of furniture while avoiding contact with the floor, which is “made of lava.”
In Hot Lava, players are challenged to make their way through a variety of obstacle courses without touching the actual lava that makes up the floor (they’ll also need to avoid other deadly traps, like toxic waste and bottomless pits). You can either use touch controls or a controller to guide your character through each course by running, jumping, bouncing off of trampolines, grabbing ahold of swinging ropes, flinging yourself off of hanging poles, and more.
If you fall off the course, you’ll teleport back to where you were before you fell, so you can try again. While the main point is to simply make it to the end of each course in one piece, you can also complete secondary objectives to earn stars. These may ask you to complete a course in a short amount of time, or complete a course without ever falling into the lava, and so on.
Hot Lava also supports multiplayer, so you may spot other players on each course with you. You can watch their exploits before choosing to continue on with your own run, which may help you figure out how to best tackle the next obstacle in front of you.
You can also unlock additional playable characters as you play, as well as earn stickers as part of an in-game collection feature.
Hot Lava has an age rating of 4+ on Apple Arcade. The game doesn’t include in-app purchases or advertisements.
Check out 15 minutes of Hot Lava in our SuperParent First Look below.
Brandy Berthelson has been writing about video games and technology since 2006, with her work appearing on sites including AOL Games, Digital Spy, and Adweek. When she’s not gaming, Brandy enjoys crafting, baking, and traveling with her husband.
