Canabalt — neat experimental game

 Posted by (Visited 7513 times)  Game talk
Sep 022009
 

Canabalt is a one-button game where you basically play an action hero or something. Doesn’t really matter, actually. 🙂 Dev time: 5 days.

Regular version is at the link above, big widescreen experience here.

  10 Responses to “Canabalt — neat experimental game”

  1. Stabs says:
    September 3, 2009 at 4:24 am

    Great game. 829m personal best so far, beat that!

  2. Sebastian says:
    September 3, 2009 at 7:44 am

    2312! Took about 10 minutes or so…

    Love the random events that occur each time.

    It gets too fast tho’, at least for my LCD screen. You WANT to hit boxes to slow down a bit…

    Great stuff!

  3. Sebastian says:
    September 3, 2009 at 7:58 am

    4515m with my pro box-eating strategy!

    OK, done now.

  4. Lobosolitario says:
    September 3, 2009 at 10:25 am

    5144m at full-out sprint – no box eating for me!

    Amazing bit of work, it flows brilliantly, and the artwork is great too. An AI mode would make for the perfect screensaver.

    I’m still debating whether an online scoreboard would detract from the pure visceral thrill of the run or not. A two-player mode could be very interesting though!

  5. Adam Atomic says:
    September 3, 2009 at 10:29 am

    Thanks Raph!

    Lobosolitario – I actually do think that online scores detract from it a little bit, but we might be the weird ones! I put up a version on Kongregate that uses their high score system and people seem to love it. I think it is distracting and overly stressful though!

  6. Eolirin says:
    September 3, 2009 at 8:06 pm

    I think a leaderboard would be bad because the randomness means some runs are much easier than others. This is fine when you’re competing against yourself, but it makes any sort of objective comparison between players impossible.

    That aside, it really is great. Everything is so finely in tune with everything else, and the music just sends it over the top.

  7. Bryan Suchenski says:
    September 3, 2009 at 11:29 pm

    Very interesting. 1501 is my best so far, but I haven’t been playing very long.

  8. Xoduz says:
    September 4, 2009 at 12:40 am

    6838m by intentionally hitting a box every 7-10 seconds or so to slow down. Almost without fail, my runs end when I faceplant into a wall above a breakable window. Strangely addictive game. =)

  9. Guru Meditation Error » Blog Archive » One-button action-game: Canabalt says:
    September 4, 2009 at 9:06 am

    […] this on Raph Koster’s blog, and it has probably been posted elsewhere as well, but I really need to post about this game […]

  10. Eolirin says:
    September 5, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    Those bloody windows are eeevil.

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