By Kieron Gillen on December 9th, 2009 at 8:17 pm.
It’s one of what I call a Simon Parkin Special. Or, at least, I will now. Picked up from his flashgame-hungry twitter, it’s Gimme Friction Baby. It’s basically a cross between Puzzle Bobble, Bowls and those men who pay other people to inflate their testicles with saline. You fire balls upwards. Wherever they stop, they expand to fit the space. Each ball can take 3 hits. You get hits for destroying balls. You lose the game if a ball bounces back at you. It’s pretty compulsive. It’s a Simon Parkin Special!
That has to be the most confusing description ever.
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It plays a little too slow for my flashgame tastes.
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I concur
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Yeah, could definitely do with playing a bit faster.
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Like everyone I’ll say, it is a cool concept but far, far too slow. If it was faster it would be a much improved game. As it is I can’t maintain interest in it long enough to really appreciate it.
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I really liked this, but I agree, if they sped it up a bit it would be better.
I think I’d like direct control over aiming too
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There’s an iPhone version of this type of game called Orbital, which is currently a buck. It’s pretty good and it has a nifty multiplayer mode where you set the iPhone on a table between the two of you and you fire from opposite sides so it’s always facing you on your turn.
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Unbearably slow, really.
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Does nobody here ever directly read Jay is Games? GMFB was first submitted there 2 years ago (won 1st prize in their casual game competition no 3)
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I’ve been playing this one for quite some time (thanks to Play This Thing) and am glad that it’s getting more of an airing. It’s a fine game and good for letting thoughts percolate.
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Oo, it’s actually quite difficult.
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Yeah really. I have a high score of 5. And I was trying. Though I’m exhausted.
Cool concept though.
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It is like that saline thing isn’t it?
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You know, it seems like an okay concept, but I shouldn’t get bored between times that it expects my input.
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Oo, 19. By far my best attempt.
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I played this a long time ago, and finally gave up when I just couldn’t progress any farther. You can get yourself into a very bad situation in later levels, where you’re fighting to carve an avenue to fire the next ball through.
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Like Zippy said, this one’s a few years old from one of JIG’s early competitions. It’s by Wouter Visser, who seems to have vanished from the internet, though the iPhone game Orbital was based on this concept and turned into a faster, more arcadey kind of game. I like GFB better. :-P
Some really impressive games have resulted from the JIG competitions, such as Sprout and the more recent Small Worlds (which RPS posted about). Lot of talented Flash game designers out there.
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This is pretty addictive. But it gets hard very quickly, and it takes to long to beat your high scores. I’ll have to check out this Orbital thing, ’cause the iPhone seems a more natural home for something like this.
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30, yes, really. This took ages. We had a local competition and I think this was the point where my boss stopped the madness. By firing me.
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A missed opportunity to put ‘scrotal infusion’ in the tags.
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I hated this the first couple of rounds, but I was bored so I kept playing and now I LOVE it. Once you put a lid on your hyperactivity and actually accept that waiting and thinking and extrapolating is a joy — it becomes a very fine experience. Have patience…
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At first, the first few shots seemed dreary, but then I realized how they lay a foundation that affects the rest of the game. They’re very important (IN REAL LIFE)! And when something is that important, suddenly it becomes less boring.
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Ooh yes, Sprout. Such a marvelous little gem of a game.
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That was a reply to JohnB. Ok, nobody cares.
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This time, the reply button should work at last. Note to self: disable totally Noscript when posting in RPS.
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Good concept, but the execution is terrible. I shouldn’t have be getting bored between shots.
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