
Late last night, Comrade Ariana forwarded me the webgame joy of Canabalt at me. It’s a one-button velocity-based randomly-generating oddly-atmospheric parkour webgame and is – as another friend puts it – probably what Mirror’s Edge should have been like. I got 2900-odd last night, but my skills seems to have atrophied overnight. I also recommend turning down the sound to the bare minimum (”-” reduces it) and play it to the sound of Music Go Music’s Warm In the Shadows (Youtube link or Spotify one), as it’s leisurely propulsiveness – and sheer length – seemed to compliment the game elegantly. No, really.
Related Stories:




I’ve found that Jem’s “24″ works quite well! Also, does anyone know what the console is for/does?
Damn, the amount of applause at the end of that song was ridiculous for how great it was, please tell me I missed something.
Thanks for the music recommendation! Now you guys not only provide pc gaming greatness but music as well.
Moar plz! :D
2925. Good stuff.
They’ve really achieved a lot with so little.
Also – 3189 :)
That is way more entertaining than it has any right being. Just over 3.5k is my top.
9058 – sorry won’t post again, kind of a zen moment though
BTW there is a MEGA build for those of you with HDTVs or bigass monitors: http://www.adamatomic.com/canabalt/mega/ Hopefully results in less squinting!
moyogo: aww, and here I was going to brag about getting 8300-something. Was the saucer still on screen for your score? It was still on the left side for mine. I kind of wonder what will happen after the 10 km. mark, but I don’t think that I’ll get that lucky.
Maybe it’s just me, but I find the camera position in this annoying. The runner feels like he’s squished up in the top-left of the frame. It makes me feel claustrophobic.
Pardon the (potential) double post, but if the developer is lurking about…
Adam Atomic: Once, one of those detestable buildings that you have to run through spawned far too low to reach. I ran off the edge without jumping, and still hit the wall above the window. It may have been possible to reach it if I timed a jump to barely miss the edge of the first building, but I don’t know if the downwards acceleration would have been good enough. I think this occurred because I hit a crate shortly before the window-building appeared on-screen, and was already moving pretty slowly at the time. It only happened once from what I’ve seen, though.
Fantastically simple game, two problems, those bloody windows and the camera shake.
The music you suggested got me my high score of 3649.
Thank you RPS!
Adam Atomic! That pixel-arty guy!
10512 – I was so interested what will happen in the background that didn’t make it on one of the easiest gaps.
Two conclusions:
1) saucer disappears scrolling out of the screen, but I haven’t notice anything new (robots came back on the right)
2) if you are not too fast, you seems to be not getting windows unless I was so lucky (didn’t get any, died on the normal gap, didn’t have enough speed).
Anyways, brilliant game, now you know my nerd side :X
I got up to 8629, but only because no office buildings spawned.
Except at the end, when I jumped into the wall trying to get inside.
8500 for me, but no spaceships.
Excellent game.
This game is making me so angry I just punched a co-worker :P
I hate, hate jumping games. This one’s deserves props for being original, but it still sucks as a game, imo.
I got 3350 after some time, and after discovering how much better it is to alternate X and C for jumps, when you need to be bouncy.
My brother played for 2 minutes and broke 4500 by Hitting Every Single Obstacle Possible — which technique he now lauds.
I went through running and when I got lucky on one run long enough to see the Spaceship (lasted a good 5000m thanks to an abundance of singular AC units spread out across every other building), I wondered if it was possible to actually beat the game. But no, judging from the comments it’s not.
It probably would’ve been quite frustrating if Kieron didn’t link to that song. But he did, and that made playing hypnotic.
Though I stopped and gave up for good when the video ended.
4282 while listening to the opener of Storm off Lift Yr Skinny Fists. Haven’t tried with Warm in the Shadows yet.
12357m. Sadly too focused on maining a slow-medium speed with boxes to see much in the background, except the odd robot. The game is very good… the drama of running very, very quickly is great, but that isn’t actually the best way to play.
Yay, 12544m. But I was hoping to see something else after the saucer-thingie. But then one of those windows got me. Damn you windows!
Fabulous gameplay and neat sorto’steampunk artstyle.
Gaining speed and doing ninja like jumps is so addictive.
If any of you are interested, we added the option to donate as little as $1 from the Game Over screen (very fast, like two clicks and a paypal password):
http://adamatomic.com/canabalt/SCIENCE.png
Once you donate you can download a 5-minute version of the Canabalt theme as well as a couple of HD wallpapers.
If you guys are into that stuff anyways…this is kind of an experiment, so any feedback (”F that I want my dollar back!!!1″) would be valuable, thanks!
I just donated. The theme song is easily worth $1.
Crap, I might need to resurrect my PayPal account…
Good game. LOVE Warm in the Shadows. Thanks for the music recommendation.
YES!
4949 gentlemen. I’ll take my award later.
This game is pure genius.
PS: I also just donated. Don’t steal my credit card. And for the love of God make more games and get them noticed on RPS.
Agree with Max, did the same :)
Really nice game, Adam, thanks a lot.
Bloomin marvellous.