Coint & Plick 2010 #78: Specter Spelunker Shrinks

13 points, 1 vote

Official Game Site

abanana: Fantastic idea; I hope Ken Grafals completes the full game.

Dev Site

Forksclovetofu: Damn fun. I’d love to see this mechanic gets picked up for a full length release.

Doctor Casino: I do have to say I don’t love the 3-D engine, which feels kind of incidental to the shrinking/growing gimmick… the perspective just makes it hard to figure out distances, which is always an unforgivable problem in a platformer. Beautiful concept though.

Composer Site

Coint & Plick 2009 #30: Canabalt

33 points, 3 votes

Official Game Site

Ned Trifle II: I am enjoying this – but it is giving me a headache.

Forksclovetofu: I assume that the reason all the non-gamer nerds are freaking out over this is because of it’s “simplicity of design” and “elegance”. That’s fine and I don’t want to hate on this trifle, but watching Michael Jackson run gets tired for me after about five minutes. Must be an iPhone thing.

Developer sketchbooks

Toastmodern: I cannot get enough of this.

Sophism

Gravel Puzzleworth: I hate the canonization of Canabalt as some sort of golden model of game design

Jamescobo: The majesty of the iPhone version comes down to three factors: (1) it loads in a heartbeat, so it’s always a viable option whenever you’re waiting for a bus, (2) the black-and-white contrast makes it easy to play in all kinds of lighting conditions, and (3) it uses the entire touchscreen as one button. It owns and and I will never delete this game from my phone and fuck all u haters >_<

Doctor Casino: Canabalt was fun for a couple runs but the rando factor becomes quickly obnoxious – every time you die, it’s to a beginner’s trap. Basically a whole game of the classic platformer annoyance “in real life, i would KNOW there was an enemy/pit/wall just off the screen!” But as with, say, Dino Run (or Sonic the Hedgehog for that matter), I *love* the sense of constant forward momentum.

Developer Interview

S1ocki: Makes you feel like you’re an action hero in the movie’s best set piece; the reward for doing well is getting to maintain that feeling. Pretty neat.